“Mmmm.” Not an answer that was likely to carry much weight in court, unfortunately. No matter. There was little point in calling Ernie to the stand, anyway. The jury would assume a father would be willing to lie to prevent his son from being executed. “You were present when Leeman was questioned by the district attorney, weren’t you? I saw you on the videotape.”
“Oh, yes,” he said wearily. “Lord, yes. I was there.”
“You know the prosecution considers that performance by Leeman to be a confession. That’s probably going to be the most damning evidence brought against him.”
“Yes,” he repeated. “Yes, I ’spect so.”
“Did you ever talk to Leeman about that? Or did you understand what he was trying to do?”
He shook his head sadly. “No, Mr. Kincaid. Cain’t say as I did.”
Ben had hoped Ernie might have some insight that made it all make sense. No such luck. If anything, he appeared to consider the evidence even more damaging than Ben did. It made Ben wonder if he was as certain of Leeman’s innocence as he claimed.
Or if he knew something more he wasn’t telling Ben.
“Mr. Hayes, can you recall anything else you haven’t told me that relates to this case?”
Was there just the slightest hesitation, or was it all in Ben’s imagination? “No, sir. Nothing.”
“Well, then I’ll be going.”
Ernie grabbed Ben’s arm and held him down. “Do you think you’ll be able to help my boy?”
“I’ll make every possible effort—”
“That ain’t enough.” Ernie drew himself up slowly, his eyes dark and clouded. “You know, Leeman was my favorite, ever since he was a little tyke. I wouldn’t tell none of the other kids that, you understand, but it’s true. I usta work out at that country club myself. Part-time, in the evenings, to make a little extra to spread around the family. I was a waiter at that fancy restaurant. In fact, I got Leeman his job there. It was all my idea.”
He shook his head sadly. “When Leeman got arrested and taken away—I felt responsible, you know? Felt jus’ awful. Like someone ripped my heart out and sealed it in a box for ten years. I felt so powerless. I kept thinkin’, if I was some rich white dude like them country-club boys, my Leeman would be a free man. I felt so bad. So guilty.” He looked, up suddenly. “It’s hard to go on livin’, thinkin’ like that. You know?”
Ben nodded sympathetically. “I’ll be in touch before the trial.”
Ernie walked Ben to the screen door. “I couldn’t help but notice,” Ben remarked. “Your arthritic limp seems to be considerably better than it was when you came to my office.”
A quick grin snuck across Ernie’s face but was immediately suppressed. “Comes and goes, don’t you know. Comes and goes.”
Right, Ben thought as he walked through the doorway. You’re a sly old dog, Ernie Hayes.
“I know what people think,” Ernie said abruptly. “They don’t say nothin’, but they think, Well, you’re probably better off now with that dumb retarded kid off your hands. But he’s my boy, Mr. Kincaid, you know?”
He took Ben’s hand and pressed it between his. “I couldn’t bear to see nothin’ more happen to my Leeman than what already has. I jus’ couldn’t bear it.”
Ben swallowed, didn’t say anything.
“Take care of my boy, Mr. Kincaid.”
“I’ll do my best,” Ben replied, his voice cracking.
Ben walked back to his car. As he left the house he surveyed the landscape—the dirt lawns, the cracked and ruined houses, the filthy streets. And just over the top of the Hayes home, just over the horizon, he could see the upper stories of the elegant Utica mansions, not ten miles away from this abject poverty.
It was like two cities, really. Two cities in one.
What a thing to be reminded of, day after day. Bad enough to live in these horrible conditions. But then, as if to add insult to injury, every time you cast your eyes upward, you see the tall gables, the blue swimming pools, the fancy cars of millionaires who spend more on their stereo systems than you make all year long. And then you go to work at their country club, and have constant firsthand exposure to the lifestyles of the pampered and privileged. The people who have everything you don’t.
That, Ben speculated, could drive a person to do almost anything.
27
BEN EXPERIENCED A PROFOUND sensation of culture shock as he drove across town to the Edward Woltz Spa for his meeting with Rachel Rutherford. In less than ten minutes, he had left the poverty and degradation of the North Side for safe south Tulsa—upscale, clean, trendy. Caffe latte bars, children’s bookstores, gourmet groceries.
A world of difference.
Ben parked his Honda and entered the austere white front lobby of the spa. The cosmic tinkling of piped-in New Age music drifted through the walls. Rock crystals were artfully arranged on the countertops. A prim, dark-haired woman greeted him at the front desk. She was wearing something that was not quite a doctor’s or a nurse’s uniform, but it had a certain sense of officialdom to it, just the same.
“Can I help you?” the woman asked.
“I’m Ben Kincaid. I’m here to see Rachel Rutherford.”
“Right. She told me to show you on back. Follow me.”
The woman pushed open a swinging door. Ben followed her down a long white corridor with doors on either side. Through the windows in the doors, he saw people, mostly women, engaged in various therapeutic exercises, lying on massage tables, or soaking in tubs.
He peered through a large window into the room on his immediate right. A green face popped up suddenly on the other side.
“Yikes!” Ben said, jerking his head back. “What was that?”
“That was Mrs. Buckner.”
Ben glanced nervously back at the door. “But she was … green.”
The woman smiled. “Mrs. Buckner is having the seaweed facial.”
Ben grimaced. “You mean that gunk smeared all over her face is seaweed?”
“Uh-huh.”
“I assume this is punishment for some egregious crime against nature.”
“Silly boy! It’s a thick green paste made from a special Mediterranean seaweed. We apply it to her face, bake it, cool it, then scrape it off. Makes your pores feel wonderful.”
“I’ll bet,” Bert said. “Especially when it’s off.”
The woman laughed. “Believe me, it’s exhilarating. Women pay as much as three hundred dollars for a single treatment. Makes them feel relaxed. All our treatments are extremely relaxing.”
“What other treatments do you offer?” Ben asked, not entirely sure he wanted to know. “I have a friend who keeps telling me I need to learn how to unwind.”
“We provide a full range of relaxation therapies. Body scrub, Shiatsu, or vibration massages. Mud baths, with a special mud imported from the Dead Sea. You name it. We’ll do whatever it takes to unknot those kinks and ease those tensions. I’d be happy to sign you up for a trial membership.”
“Thanks just the same,” Ben said. “I can’t afford it.”
“Oh, but that’s the best part,” the woman explained. “We’re very economical. A bargain, really. If you go to a first-class luxury spa in Florida or Hawaii, you can expect to pay thirty-five hundred bucks a week. Here, you don’t have to leave home, and we don’t have a single treatment that costs more than five hundred.”
“Is that all?” Ben mumbled.
“Many are less than two. And you can be in and out of here in an hour.”
Ben nodded. “Therapy in a bottle.”
“Hey, that’s pretty good. I’ll pass it along to Mr. Woltz. It would make a fine advertising slogan. Do you mind?”
“Feel free.”
The woman pushed open a door at the end of the corridor. “Mrs. Rutherford is in the tub.”
The woman escorted Ben into a small tiled room, then excused herself. The main feature of the small room was the even smaller Jacuzzi in the center. It was a circular tub,
barely big enough to hold one person. Water flowed and bubbled through jets on the sides; steam rose from the rippling surface of the water.
Rachel Rutherford was immersed in the tub, hands on her knees, eyes closed. Her short blonde hair fell gracefully above her bare shoulders. The bubbles lapped at her cleavage. Ben knew she had to be in her forties, but she looked ten years younger. Maybe this seaweed stuff works after all, he mused. She was very attractive.
She was also, Ben suddenly realized, nude. If not for the bubbling foam on the surface, this would become an extremely revealing interview.
Ben suddenly felt rather warm under the collar. “Why don’t I wait outside while you …”
Rachel opened her eyes. “Didn’t you want to talk to me?”
“Well, yesss …”
“Your secretary said it was urgent.”
“Well, yesss …”
“After I get out, I have a mixed-doubles match I can’t miss, and tonight I’m going to Chris Bentley’s charity ball. If you want conversation, it had better be now.”
Ben wiped his damp palms on his slacks. “I don’t want to make you uncomfortable. …”
She laughed. Her bosom vibrated in an amazingly enticing manner. Ben found it very difficult to avert his eyes. “Don’t worry about me. At the moment I’m at peace with the universe. What can I do for you?”
“Well, ma’am, I’m a lawyer—”
“I’m sorry.”
“I represent Leeman Hayes.”
“Don’t believe I know him.” Her eyelids fluttered closed.
“He used to be a caddy at the country club, ma’am. About ten years ago.”
Her eyes reopened. “He’s the one who killed that poor foreign woman, isn’t he?”
Ben frowned. “That’s the accusation, ma’am. I don’t think he did it.”
“I remember my husband telling me the … details of the murder. Horrible.” She shuddered. “But what can I do for you?”
“I understand you spent a great deal of time at the country club around the time of the murder.”
“I’m sure I did. So?”
Ben wasn’t certain how to begin. He didn’t really know why he wanted to talk to her. It was just a hunch. Or desperation. “Well … did you see anything suspicious? Anything that might bear on the murder?”
“I wasn’t loitering around the caddyshack much in those days.”
“Yes, but still—”
“Mr. Kincaid, I was interviewed by the police at the time, as you must know, and I told them I didn’t possess any information about the murder, which I don’t.”
“What can you tell me about Ronald Pearson?”
“You think Ronnie killed that woman?”
“Not necessarily. But the woman was from Peru, and I know he has business ties to Peru. The woman came to this country and immediately went to the country club, where he happened to be chairman of the board—”
“That doesn’t make him a murderer.”
“No. But it gives me cause to ask questions.”
She gently splashed water on her shoulders. “Then go ask Ronnie.”
Ben tried a different tack. “I understand your little boy comes to the country club sometimes, too.”
“Abie? Occasionally. Not often.”
“Forgive me for prying, ma’am, but I’ve seen a picture and … Abie doesn’t much resemble his father.”
“He doesn’t resemble either of us. He’s adopted.”
“So I’ve been told. Why did you—”
“It’s a long story, Mr. Kincaid.” She stretched back in the tub, revealing ever-increasing portions of hot pink skin. “Are you sure you want to hear it? It has nothing to do with your case.”
“Still—”
“All right. You asked for it. First, you have to understand—I’ve always wanted children. A baby of my own. Practically since I was a baby myself, that was my driving goal. Truth to tell, that was the main reason I got married. I didn’t need Hal’s money. I had plenty of my own. What I needed was a husband. So I could get my baby.”
“I’m not sure I see …”
“Of course, I’ve learned since that what you want most in life, what you can’t live without, is the very thing most often denied. We tried for seven years to conceive. Time and time again I had sex with that man.” Her face scrunched up in disgust.
Ben felt himself flushing. He couldn’t believe she was saying this to someone she barely knew. Of course, he couldn’t believe she was sitting there naked in front of someone she barely knew either.
“Hal was much older than me, of course. He would grunt and thrust and strain. I just lay there every night, enduring it, thinking, maybe this will be the magic one. Maybe this will be the time I get my little baby.” She pressed her wet polished fingertips against her lips. “But it never was.”
“Was there … a problem?”
“So I wondered. To tell you the truth, that’s why I had the affair.”
“The—the—”
“Yes, that. To find out the cause of the problem. Was it Hal or was it me? Well, it was me.” She paused. “Don’t worry, I’ve confessed to Hal. I’m sure it seems odd to have this woman blabbing her innermost secrets, but let me tell you, I was in therapy for twelve years, and my shrink recommended that I stop keeping my feelings locked inside, that I try to be honest. So I do. I was honest with Hal, and I’ll be honest with you, too.”
She paused again, then returned to her narrative. “I thought perhaps Hal was sterile, so I tried to get pregnant with someone else. Didn’t enjoy him much, either. He’s a bit of a pig, when you get right down to it. I just thought, please, God, please, let this be the time. Let me have my baby.”
She splashed hot water on her face. “But that didn’t take, either. I had to face facts. I was the problem.”
“You saw a doctor?”
“Several. Turns out my insides are all screwed up. Ovaries are a mess. My body doesn’t release eggs the way it’s supposed to. I wasn’t going to be having any children. At least not the natural way.”
She folded up her legs and sank lower into the tub, as if to hide herself in the foamy bubbles. “I was devastated. Ruined. I—well, I tried to kill myself. Sat in the garage with the car running. If Hal hadn’t come home early, it might have worked. That’s when I went into therapy. But nothing made me feel any better. Nothing made me feel I had any reason to live.”
She looked up abruptly. “Until someone suggested the possibility of adoption. Hal was against it at first, but eventually he agreed to try.”
“That must have made your life better.”
“That,” she said emphatically, “turned my life into a fucking nightmare.”
“I—I don’t understand.”
“How much do you know about the adoption business?”
“Not much,” Ben admitted.
“Well, it’s a seller’s market. Been that way for years. What with the pill and all manner of contraceptives and legal abortion, birthrates are declining. And single motherhood is no longer the unbearable social stigma it once was. Bottom line, there aren’t that many babies around.”
“Surely, given your husband’s … influence …”
Her chin raised. “You mean his affluence? Wrong. Adoptions in America are tightly regulated. Hal couldn’t pay enough bribes to get around all the sycophants and supernumeraries with their rules and guidelines. As it turned out, Hal was the biggest strike against us. He was fifty; the adoption agencies considered him too old to become a father for the first time. Ironic, huh? The man I had married just to get a baby was now my main obstacle.”
She stretched out her legs and floated to the surface of the tub. Her buoyant breasts rose to the surface, nipples bobbing in the foam. She didn’t seem to notice. Or if she did, she didn’t care. “This was not a good time for our marriage,” she continued. “After a while I gave up all hope. I knew I was going to kill myself. It was just a matter of time.
“Finally, Hal contacted
a lawyer who supposedly specialized in arranging difficult adoptions. Paid him twenty-five thousand bucks up front. He found us a pregnant woman. So he said. Single. Fifteen. Wanted to put her child up for adoption. So we were told.
“I was ecstatic. We were waiting at home the day she was supposed to deliver, with our new crib and baby monitors and car seats and baby clothes and all those other child-care essentials. I even redecorated a room.”
Her eyes darkened. “About six o’clock that night, the lawyer calls and says the baby died. He’s real sorry. Maybe next time.” She inhaled deeply, sending concentric ripples across the surface of the tub. “I cried for weeks. And I tried to kill myself again. This time with a knife. In a pool not unlike this one.” She held out her left wrist. “Wanna see the scars?”
“No, thanks,” Ben said quietly.
“Obviously, I didn’t die. I just hurt like hell. For months. Then the lawyer announced that he had found us another pregnant woman. So I held on. Maybe this time, I kept saying. Maybe this time. I got excited again, all ready to go. One of my girlfriends at the club even threw me a shower. Then we got the call.” Another deep, purging breath. “ ‘The mother changed her mind,’ he said. He was so sorry. His voice even trembled a bit as he gave us the news.”
“What a horrible coincidence,” Ben said.
“I don’t believe in coincidence. Neither does Hal. He had the lawyer investigated. Turns out the whole operation was a charade. A scam. The lawyer took the money and fabricated the stuff about mothers and babies. What’s worse, we found out he’d pulled the same scam on fourteen other couples. Got them excited, absconded with their money. He never gave anyone a baby because he didn’t have a baby to give.” She looked up at Ben. “So you’ll have to excuse me if I’m not all that fond of lawyers.”
“Not at all.”
“That lawyer is in the pen now, which was certainly gratifying, but it didn’t get me a baby.”
“You must have been horribly depressed.”
She tilted her head to one side. “Not so much that time, actually. I don’t know why. By then I had somehow … hardened. I didn’t expect anything. It was as if some chunk of my soul, some capacity for caring … disappeared. Even now, I think there’s a part of me I lost that I’ll never get back.”
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