by Alina Adams
"Why would Felicia kill Rachel?"
"Because she was jealous of Robby's obsession with her. Have you ever talked to Felicia? I mean, talk about obsession—her feelings for Robby weren't exactly cool and detached. She told me she was so crazy about him, she didn't even mind his leaving her to skate with Rachel, as long as she was the one he married."
"So? How's that obsessive? You just said she didn't mind him going to Rachel."
"She didn't mind him skating with Rachel. Obsessing over her was another story."
"Wouldn't it make more sense for her to kill Robby, then?"
"Obsessives aren't known for their sterling logic, Craig."
"Rachel never gave Robby a second glance. She was no threat to Felicia. And besides, this all happened over fourteen years ago. Why would Felicia go after Rachel now?"
Bex hated to say it, since it didn't exactly shove her into the best light. But, it was the most obvious answer. She said, "For the same reason that you think Robby came after Rachel. Because I reminded her of it."
Craig shook his head. "No. No, it doesn't make any sense. Rachel was as much Robby's victim as Felicia was."
"Maybe that's not how Felicia sees it." It was time to tread delicately again. Bex sure did wish she knew how one did that. "I mean, you say that Rachel insisted that Robby raped her. But, what if Felicia didn't see it that way? What if she thought it was consensual? What if she thought her husband and your wife were having an affair?"
"Then she's an idiot. Rachel would have never in a million years.... Besides, logically, how would Felicia have even known about it? You think Robby went bragging to her afterward?"
"Well, people at the rink, they do talk amongst themselves, don't they? And didn't you say Rachel thought her coach knew about it? That he'd heard? Maybe he told someone and they told someone and before anyone knew it, it was all over the rink. That's certainly possible, isn't it?"
"And you think Felicia blamed Rachel? Blamed her enough to kill her?"
Bex was about to nod ardently when another conjecture gripped her chin and froze it mid-bob. "Craig? All these years you and Rachel were working so hard to keep Robby from finding out about Jeremy, did you ever think about Felicia finding out about him?"
"What do you mean?"
"Maybe it wasn't rink gossip that clued Felicia in about Robby and Rachel."
"For God's sake, there was never any Robby and Rachel except in Robby's sick, twisted, half-frozen mind, how many times do I have to tell you that?"
"Fine, fine." There would be time to debate those specifics later. "But, what I mean is, what if it wasn't the coach, or anyone else for that matter, who gossiped? What if Felicia found out about Jeremy being Rachel's son? Be honest, Craig. I know you love him and you raised him and you consider him yours. But, really, all Felicia would have to do is look at him, and she'd know he was Robby's, wouldn't she?"
Her question made Craig visibly uncomfortable. He shifted his weight from foot to foot and looked out the window. But, he did concede. "There's a strong resemblance. Only on the outside, though. Jeremy is nothing like Robby on the inside. He's a good kid."
"I know," Bex said softly. "You and Rachel did a good job with him. I'm really impressed. I mean, especially because it couldn't have been easy for you, raising Robby Sharpton's son...."
"I never thought of him that way." Craig shrugged. "It sounds like a platitude but, I really never thought of him like that. Genetics are so stupid and unimportant. My own parents taught me that much, and I barely knew either of them. I consider Michael Hiroshi my father, and I consider Jeremy my son. It's pretty simple, actually. You probably don't believe me, but Robby Sharpton never really entered the equation."
"I believe you," Bex said honestly. "I do. But, do you think that would have mattered to Felicia Tufts? All she'd have seen is that her husband had a child with another woman. And not just any other woman. Felicia's rival."
"And so she killed Rachel? Fourteen years after the fact?"
"Jealousy is pretty powerful. And, honestly, Felicia wasn't too nice to me when I tried to talk to her about Robby and Rachel. I think she may still be pretty bitter."
"And you don't think any of that bitterness possibly had to do with your unaggressive and non-confrontational interviewing style, do you?"
Bex valiantly fought the urge to stick her tongue out at him. She didn't think it was in the handbook for how to behave around the recently bereaved.
"Fine, so I put her in a bad mood. But, I still think my theory has validity."
"What's in this for you, Bex?" Craig suddenly asked. She wasn't sure if it was a clever plan to throw her off balance now that she was dangerously close to the truth, or if he was just tired of listening to her and so desperate to change the subject that he instinctively did so by focusing on the one topic he knew most folks found infinitely fascinating—themselves. "Why are you so doggone determined to get to the bottom of this?"
"It's my job."
"And that's all?"
"And ... I like to know the truth. I don't like being lied to."
"You think I am? Lying to you? Why would I do that, Bex?"
"Because," and this was the part where, in retrospect, it really, really would have helped if Bex possessed the ability to think at least a second before she spoke. "Because maybe you actually killed Rachel and are using Robby Sharpton to cover it up."
Yes. In retrospect, the ability to think before she spoke and—here came the really key part—maybe, possibly censor herself, would have come in very handy, indeed.
Needless to say, following the articulation of her latest theory, Bex found her welcome in the Hunt home—not particularly warm to begin with—definitely wearing thin. Oh, who was she kidding? She hightailed it out of there as soon as she saw Craig's face start to resemble the Nazi from Raiders of the Lost Ark seconds before he melted. Only Craig somehow managed to look worse. She figured the time for talk was now over. It was time to duck and cover.
If it weren't for needing to use at least one foot to work the gas and brakes, Bex would have been kicking herself the entire drive home. What in the world had possessed her to say that?
And then she remembered: The notion had come into her head at a time when she was not unconscious or chewing. Obviously that was enough reason to blurt it out without forethought.
Bex was still kicking herself when she returned to the office the next morning and, with a heavy sigh, plopped herself down in her chair, ready to listen to the dozens of phone messages that had accumulated in her absence.
The first two were from Gil, asking if they didn't have a meeting scheduled? He seemed to remember their having a meeting scheduled. Something about a feature she wanted to show him, and where the hell was she, anyway?
Another handful were from elite skaters returning her calls of God only knew how long ago, providing answers to holes she needed to plug in their official bios.
At least, Bex sincerely hoped that's what the calls were about. One message simply said, "This is Kerry Ryder. I'm gonna get you, sucka."
As Bex had called Kerry a week earlier to find out what music she'd be skating to for her Nationals short program, she preferred to think that she'd been given her answer via the title of a movie soundtrack, rather than issued a threat.
The last message in the rotation had been left the night before, about an hour after she'd left Craig's. And it was whispered. "Ms. Levy, this is Jeremy Hunt. I really need to talk to you. It's about my dad killing my mom."
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Bex's first impulse upon hearing Jeremy's whispered message was to immediately hit the redial button. And who was she not to follow an impulse? Bex punched *69. The phone on the other end rang once. Twice. Three times. Bex waited for a machine to click on. It didn't. She waited for someone to pick up. No one did. Wanting to make sure she was calling the right place, and not simply redialing someone who'd called her after Jeremy and just didn't leave a message, Bex checked the number she'd found for
Rachel Rose on the Internet and dialed again by hand. The ringing phone on the other end sounded exactly, she thought, like the one she'd just heard. It also rang seven times without either an answer or a machine.
Obviously, Bex needed to do something now. What they had here was a situation. A situation only she knew about and thus was responsible for. (There was also the minor detail that Bex, very possibly, might have set the whole thing into motion in the first place.) All the more reason for her to act. But, act how?
Well, that part was obvious, wasn't it?
She had to get to Jeremy. Before Craig did.
Bex wondered what Jeremy's message meant. On the one hand, "It's about my dad killing my mom," didn't seem to avail itself to various interpretations. Jeremy was telling her that Craig killed Rachel. Or maybe he was telling her that he suspected Craig of killing Rachel. Or maybe he was telling her that he had proof that Craig killed Rachel. In any case, Bex really needed to speak to Jeremy. The sooner the better.
She dialed the phone again.
This time, on the fifth ring, she got an answer.
"Hello?" The voice sounded as if it belonged to Craig Hunt.
Bex gulped. And wondered how, back when she'd been following her first instinct, she'd intended to respond when faced with Jeremy's father instead of Jeremy. Because the odds were good that's whom she'd get.
"Excuse me, Craig, could I please speak to Jeremy? I believe he had something to tell me about you killing your wife," she most definitely did not say.
Instead, Bex panicked and hung up the phone.
Very professional. Very mature. Very... what had Craig called her? Nervy.
She wished she could say she hung up because she'd suddenly come up with a much better, more efficient plan. But mostly it was because she was shaking so badly, Bex doubted she could have gotten the clever words out of her throat even if she had managed to think of some.
Under the circumstances, Bex decided to put clever on the back burner, and try something more in the cowardly and/or obvious category. She called up her new friend and life-advisor, Gretchen, to ask if there was any news on the Rachel Rose murder.
Like, "Did you get the autopsy report back?"
"Yes," Gretchen said brightly. "We did."
"And?"
"And there seemed to be nothing out of the ordinary. The only interesting result was that, due to some wooden splinters found tangled up in Ms. Rose's hair and embedded in her skull, we now believe that she wasn't so much battered by an—"
"You determined the indeterminate object?"
"May I finish, please, Bex?"
"I'm sorry." Nice going, Bex. Your first piece of tangible information in days, and you have to slip into eager-beaver mode and possibly piss off the only person still speaking to you.
"We now believe that rather than being battered by an indeterminate object, Ms. Rose's head was actually smashed against a tree, causing her death."
"So it could have been an accident then?"
"What do you mean?"
"I mean, maybe her assailant didn't mean to kill Rachel. Maybe he just pushed harder than he intended, and she fell and hit her head against the tree and died?"
Bex had never previously considered the possibility of an accident. But, it made a good amount of sense, especially if she accepted Craig Hunt to be the culprit. Because, to Bex, the biggest difficulty with moving him to the head of the suspect list was the fact that the man had appeared genuinely broken up about Rachel's death. Now, granted, he could be a fabulous actor, or a psychopath on par with Robby Sharpton (heck, maybe psychopath was Rachel Rose's type, who knew?). Or, more likely, he could really be distraught and broken up because he'd killed his wife by accident in the middle of an argument. An accident also made it a lot more likely that Jeremy had been a witness to the whole thing.
"So, is that a possibility? That Rachel fell and hit her head?" Bex asked Gretchen.
"Four times?"
Well, there went that theory. And it was such a nice one too, complete with tied up loose ends and a diminished capacity plea.
Bex sighed. "So somebody smashed her head against a tree. Charming." She perked up a bit. "Can you tell from maybe the height or the angle or something, if it was a man or a woman?" Might as well see if science allowed for Felicia Tufts to stay on the list.
"Not really." Gretchen shuffled some papers in the background.
Bex waited for Gretchen to follow up. When she didn't, Bex wondered why she had to do all the work around here. She then asked what, to her, seemed the obvious next question. "Well, was there anything you could tell from the autopsy that you didn't know before?"
"Cause of death," Gretchen reminded. "That's a pretty big one."
"Not if it doesn't help you find the killer," Bex—oh, here was a surprise—blurted out the correction without thinking, then desperately wished she could take the point back. Bex didn't mind being sarcastic or blunt on occasion. (It was part of her charming personality, and if anyone said otherwise, they were wrong.) But, she did try to draw the line at outright obnoxious. Alas, she seemed to have forgotten her drawing pen that morning.
Bex was about to apologize, when Gretchen stiffly told her, "I can assure you the Poconos Police Department is working on it. They're working on it awfully hard. Some of them have even given up vacation days to see if they can crack the case before it gets cold, and they were planning that vacation for months."
Bex bit her lip (also very hard) to keep from asking if maybe, possibly, just by random chance, the dedicated officer in charge of the case might not also be the perfect local guy with whom Gretchen was hoping to start a family despite them both being over forty and a host of other personal details Bex had done her best to forget since their last conversation.
Instead, she settled for, "I'm sorry. Really, I am. It's just that I have this boss, and he really needs me to bring back a story or else I have to pay all my expenses and—"
She never got the chance to finish. Her words triggered another avalanche of empathy and relating from Gretchen, along the lines of aren't bosses the worst, especially New York bosses who live and die by whether you got their client on Page Six, like that's the most important thing in the world and people will actually die if the box office gross doesn't break records its first weekend and don't they know there are more important things in the world like marriage and family life and boy, was she glad to be out of that rat race; Bex should really think of doing the same, she sounded really stressed, did she know that? Maybe some yoga classes would help.
Bex took a deep breath. It was the only thing she actually remembered from the one yoga class she ever took (there was a coupon and the words free trial involved) except for how much doing something called a "Down Doggie" hurt, and how, despite the instructor's insisting that there was wisdom trying to get out of her body, Bex begged to differ—the only thing trying to get out of her body were her Achilles tendons, which were strained so tightly she expected them to pop right out of her skin. On the other hand, taking a deep breath did keep her from interrupting Gretchen's ode to family values, so she now deemed the class money well (not) spent.
Bex kept her own counsel while Gretchen pontificated on how much better it was to raise a child in the country rather than the city, and how much better the schools were, even better than the private ones in New York City, which were impossible to get into anyway and then, what did they really offer for their twenty thousand dollars a year except the chance for your kid to mingle with snobs, whereas here, everything was so wholesome, the children practically skipped everywhere while sipping milk fresh from the cow and singing show tunes. (Okay, so Bex paraphrased that last part, but it sure sounded like what Gretchen was implying; Bex wondered if, in addition to her P.R. work with the police department, the woman also sold real estate in her free time.)
Finally, Bex managed to get a word in edgewise and inquire, "Gretchen? Remember when we first talked, you told me that, in cases like this, it's usually the hu
sband who's responsible. Do you have any evidence that Craig Hunt might have killed Rachel?"
Gretchen said, "When we interviewed him, he told us he was home with his son, Jeremy, I think is the name, the morning Rachel was killed. The boy backed him up."
"Did you believe him?"
"Who? Craig or Jeremy?"
"Well, either, actually. How did they seem during the interview?"
"Devastated. They both seemed just devastated. It was such a huge shock. Rachel went out in the morning, didn't tell either of them where she was going, and then, a few hours later, just when they're starting to worry, here come the police at their door to tell them she's been murdered. Can you imagine? That poor little boy! We sent a social worker with the notification unit; it's our standard policy up here. This department is very sensitive to the needs of the community."
"Did Craig tell you if Rachel often went out at dawn without telling her husband or child where she was going?" If she did, that would be most odd, considering how security-obsessed that family was.
"It's a little hard for him to know her routine. From what I understand, Mr. Hunt traveled quite a bit for business, and the boy was away at boarding school for most of the year." Ah, so that was their cover story. It was a pretty good one to explain to the neighbors (and to policemen) why the family was so rarely together. Gretchen added, "But, Mr. Hunt did say he had no idea why she was at the park."
"Was she meeting someone?"
"He didn't know."
"Well, did he have any theories?"
"Not that the officer wrote down."
"Did the officer have any theories?"
"In situations like this, it's usually the husband," Gretchen offered helpfully.
Bex hung up the phone.
Well, she actually said good-bye first and then listened to a story about the odds of in-vitro working on the first try. There was no need to be unnecessarily rude, especially since she might find herself needing Gretchen again in the near future. Minimal information was still better than no information, and even if she took the mountainous scenic route, Gretchen did eventually get around to telling Bex at least one thing that she didn't know.