Can’t Never Tell

by Unknown

“Rog knew she was having an affair? You’re certain?”

  Eden had the graciousness to pause for a minute, acknowledgment that she might not know everything about Rog. “He knew that’s who she was talking to. I don’t know if he knew about the affair. Men can be so gullible. Especially Rog. He didn’t necessarily want this move. He took this new job to appease her, to bring her back home. He was focused on his job, on making the transition. Universities can be highly political and treacherous. He needed to get himself positioned appropriately. That was his focus.”

  I’d hate to take notes in Eden Rand’s class, given how peripatetic her path. “Were the Reimanns happily married?” I was more interested in Eden’s response than in the reality.

  She started shaking her head immediately. “Oh no. I don’t think so. They weren’t terribly compatible. Rog is cerebral, devoted to his research. I think Rinda swept in when he was vulnerable, in distress over his first wife’s death. Rinda was married at the time, you know, to someone else. That didn’t stop her from insinuating herself into Rog’s life.”

  I bit the inside of my lip. We do tend to hold up mirrors that reflect ourselves, and we so seldom realize it.

  “So Rog had an affair with Rinda while she was married?”

  With no more than a wave of her hand, she brushed aside the implication that his actions had been less than chivalrous. “Marriage is an artificial construct. Rinda’s first marriage had no meaning for her. Why should it have meaning for Rog? Besides, he was hardly the aggressor. That’s not in his nature.”

  What in his nature brought out this passion and protectiveness in women? I’d spent time with Rog. I hadn’t seen anything magnetic or alluring. Maybe it only worked on women who longed to have someone to care for.

  “Was Rog still in love with Rinda?”

  “Ah.” She sounded almost exasperated. “What is love? A series of chemical reactions, with marriage as a social convenience, no more than a formal contract to protect the procreative result. I doubt he was ever in love with her. It was convenient, a way to process his grief over his first wife’s death.”

  I pictured Rog’s hollow-eyed stare as he’d sat in my office this morning. His grief looked real enough. Or was it shock? Shock at Rinda’s death? Or shock at something else?

  I studied Eden. Her face and arms carried the puffy paleness of someone who spent too much time indoors. She wore no makeup, and her clothing, her scarves, her reading glasses buried on top of her head all spoke of a created carelessness.

  “You have some interesting views on marriage,” I said in what I hoped sounded like an intellectually curious tone rather than a cross-examination. “Are you married?”

  “No.” Again, the dismissing wave of the hand. “I don’t need the state’s permission for how I choose to gratify myself.”

  I nodded. Was Rog Reimann her one shot at matrimony? I might believe the free-floating spirit act from somebody else, but I’d watched Eden dance attendance on an oblivious Rog Reimann. Her attendance sent a different message than her words did.

  If I was Sheriff L. J. Peters, my suspicion meter would be pointing at Eden Rand. She seemed in much better control than Rog, much more deliberate. She obviously had him under her control. She might know he already had money and obviously knew he had more insurance money coming. Eden wasn’t a large or athletic woman, but neither was Rinda, in her pencil-thin white pants.

  Eden’s hands nestled in the folds of her tiered peasant skirt and its layers of faded cotton. She wore no rings. Was protecting—or winning—Rog a powerful enough motive? Could those fingers have grabbed hold of Rinda Reimann’s thin arms with enough force to leave bruises, with enough force to send her over the edge?

  At that thought, I had trouble meeting Eden’s gaze.

  “So you think Rinda’s boyfriend—Mr. Tharp—had something to do with her death?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe they were having some kind of argument, with all those phone calls that day. She kept going off by herself, so no one could overhear. Maybe in despair, she threw herself off the mountain.”

  Or maybe her husband found out about the affair. Maybe he overheard sweet nothings or plans for an assignation, or maybe someone told him. Someone who had her own agenda. Maybe a hurt and enraged Rog had grabbed his wife and flung her off the top of Bow Falls, her slender, white pants legs flailing as she fell.

  “Did Rog care that she’d renewed her friendship with Ken Tharp?” Asking the question in different ways sometimes yields more telling answers.

  She gave a deep shrug. “He didn’t really love her. They had nothing in common. She caught him at a weak moment, when his first wife died. That was all they had. I think they both realized it was a mistake. Rog missed his old job. He’d earned the kind of comfortable perks that come from surviving the battles in an academic institution. Of course, he’s in a better position now, more opportunity for national visibility. He’ll come to see that.”

  Was it easier for her if she convinced herself that Rog hadn’t loved his wife, that he was a sort of renewable virgin? I didn’t know him well enough to draw a conclusion, but from this morning’s visit, I would judge he was either on drugs, in deep grief, or a permanent space cadet. To what lengths would Eden Rand go to protect the sad puppy? Had she already gotten him to follow her home? For Rog’s sake, I hoped not. It wouldn’t do him any good for L. J. Peters—or anyone else, for that matter—to find out he’d already taken up with another woman.

  “I appreciate you letting me know all this.” I stood to draw our little chat to a close. For a smart woman, Eden seemed particularly clueless about the implications of the gossipy tidbits she’d carried in.

  “It would be best if Rog avoided any appearance of impropriety, especially while the sheriff is asking questions.” I fixed her with a stern eye. “It’s a small town, you know. A very conventional little place.”

  She drew herself upright, stiffened by a touch of indignation. “Don’t I know that.”

  I cut her off before she could launch into another of her lectures. “It would be best to give Rog some space right now. I know you want to help, but the appearance that you’re too close to him could complicate matters.”

  She blinked and drew back. A range of reactions danced across her guileless face: disbelief, hurt, anger, sadness. Embarrassment?

  “I—”

  “I’m sure you understand. It would also be best to keep what you know about Rinda to yourself. No need to stir up any small-town suspicions.”

  As her mouth pulled at the corners, I knew I’d struck the right tone with her. Perhaps her disdain for the plebian small-town minds could help her sublimate her sexual energy. She needed to steer clear of Rog for a while. She could entice the clueless one into her little love web later. Right now, she didn’t need to be wrapping him in a cocoon and delivering him into L. J. Peters’ not-so-tender embrace.

  Monday Afternoon

  After I escorted Eden Rand to the front door, I noticed the light on in Melvin Bertram’s inner sanctum. I hadn’t heard him come home.

  “Yoo-hoo.” I peeked in the French door to his outer office to make sure he wasn’t on the phone.

  “Greetings,” he called.

  “Welcome home,” I said as I entered the doorway to his sanctum.

  He leaned back in his desk chair and stretched his arms over his head as if he’d been hunched over his computer too long.

  “When’d you get back?”

  “Late last night. Heard you all’ve had a bit of excitement this week. Made the national news, you know.”

  “Which story?”

  “The dead guy in the traveling show. Don’t tell me you got something that tops that.”

  “Rinda Reimann fell off Bow Falls on Saturday.” The regional television stations had mentioned it, but an accidental fall lacks the drama that television scandal news craves. The story was taking too much time to unfold and couldn’t be captured neatly in a sound bite.

  “Oh, gosh. I’m sorr
y to hear that.”

  Melvin had lived away from Dacus a lot of years, and Rinda would’ve been too many years behind him in school for him to remember her.

  He paused for a respectful moment before asking, “So what’s the local chatter on the traveling mummy? Has he set the town on its ear?”

  “Parts of it,” I said, picturing Madam President Adrienne Campbell’s dramatic hissy fit. “Most folks find it a curiosity.”

  Melvin chuckled. “Well, sure. It’s not like he’s from around here.”

  “So what’s the gossip?”

  “Guess the news reports didn’t mention who discovered the body.”

  “No.” He paused, reading the expression on my face. “No-o. Not you. You’re kidding.”

  “ ’Twas me. And Emma.”

  “They said some kid bumped into it and the leg fell off.”

  “That wasn’t Emma. She just happened to be the one to have it land at her feet.”

  “Your sister still letting you see your niece?” He was only half-teasing.

  “Amazingly enough, she is. Come to think of it, though, we’ve had only supervised visits lately.”

  “I can understand that. I’ve long wondered why they would turn you loose with an impressionable child . . .”

  I snorted. “Impressionable. Emma?”

  “Seriously, is she okay?”

  “No signs of residual psychological damage, which is good. I do worry about that. I can’t quite believe we’re the adults in her life. Somehow, the adults in my life seemd so much more, what? Serious? Mature?”

  “Responsibly adult?”

  “Something like that.”

  “Yeah, but the adults in your life included Miss Aletha Howe, and Miss Vinnia, and Miss Hattie. Those are formidable role models.”

  “Yeah.” Somehow it was reassuring to realize that Emma may have an Aunt Bree who doesn’t always think through the long-term effects for a child, but she also has the same greater-aunts who’d watched over me. I’d been aware, growing up, of the high standards they set, of how formidable they were, but I later realized how protective they’d been, avenging and punishing angels as required.

  I needed to change the subject before I got sloppy and sentimental. “Do you know Spencer Munn? He’s a professor over at Ramble College, but he also—I don’t know how you’d put it—gives investment advice to people.”

  Melvin pursed his lips as he shook his head. “No, that name doesn’t ring a bell. Is he with a firm?”

  “I get the impression he’s a one-man show.”

  “How do you know him?”

  “Frank and Lydia. He used to teach at the university. He and Frank were in separate departments, of course. Spence—Dr. Munn, I guess he is—teaches economics.”

  I didn’t mention dinner and dancing. Melvin and I keep our office-sharing and our private lives very separate.

  “I don’t really know that many people around here,” Melvin said.

  Melvin had left Dacus and built his investment-advising business in Atlanta. With clients spread all over the country, he had decided he could sit at his computer in Dacus just as easily as he could in Atlanta. As he said, all he needed was Internet access and a way to get to an airport.

  “Well, just wanted you to know you’ve got some competition in town. His clients rave about him.”

  Melvin gave the same tight smile I would offer him if he were to rib me about how good some unknown attorney was. Not that Melvin would do that. He tends toward gentlemanliness.

  “Twelve percent is a really good rate of return right now, isn’t it?” I asked.

  “Well, that depends.”

  “That’s a lawyerly answer,” I said. “I’d expect better from you.”

  He leaned back in his chair, prepared to lecture. “What sort of risk does it carry?”

  “Not much.” I didn’t say guaranteed. I knew that was ridiculous and leaned heavily toward another good lawyerly term: puffery, as in an expression of opinion designed to aid a sale, rather than a statement of fact.

  Melvin’s brow knotted downward. “This Dr. Munn is offering that?”

  “Getting that, according to his satisfied clients.”

  Melvin shrugged. “That’s a great rate. Probably fairly volatile right now, though. I wouldn’t count on returns like that being steady—and certainly not long term.”

  I didn’t rib him about how serious his competitive threat was, if he was giving his clients gloomy forecasts like that.

  Melvin stared at me a beat too long. “You have anything invested with this guy?” He kept his tone casual, but I could hear the effort that took.

  “Naw. I don’t know anything about what he’s doing, just some snatches of conversation.”

  The differences between Spence Munn and Melvin Bertram struck me. One was Brooks Brothers, the other Armani. One was Atlanta, fly-fishing for mountain trout, and a good square dancer. The other was Las Vegas, with no clue how to dress for a picnic in the woods, though he sure knew how to wine, dine, and dance. To be fair in balancing the scales, Melvin might be a good ballroom dancer, I just hadn’t seen him in action.

  One made a great friend and office mate. The other was a fun date—and did I mention? A really good dancer.

  I would keep my money in my balanced selection of mutual funds and let the investment gurus battle it out for the high-flying risk takers.

  “Glad you’re back,” I said, and I meant it. “Guess if I leave, we can both get back to work.” I pushed myself up from the antique corner chair he kept in front of his desk for the times when I came to distract him from his work. He didn’t have to contend with pesky clients dropping in—just with me.

  I had one other friend to bug before I declared a holiday of the remainder of the day.

  From the phone at my desk, I called Rudy, not sure even as I punched in the numbers how I would raise the topic.

  He answered with a bark on the second ring.

  “Recognized your number and started not to answer. Trying to get out of here.”

  “I feel the love way over here. I’m touched.”

  He snorted.

  “Just one question.” With any other cop, I wouldn’t dare offer up a possible motive for someone who was a quasi-client. Rog had consulted me for help on collecting his dead wife’s life insurance, but he hadn’t asked me to represent him in a criminal investigation. With Rudy, I didn’t have to split ethical hairs about whether my question stepped over a shadowy line. Rudy was a play-fair investigator. He wouldn’t take a question and turn it into an indictment. On the other hand, if he had solid evidence, he wouldn’t back away, either. For my peace of mind, though, I needed to see in which direction the investigation was heading.

  “Yes?” He sounded tired.

  “Have you heard any rumors about Rinda Reimann?”

  Rudy gave my open-ended question a long silence. When he spoke, he didn’t dangle me along. He must be on serious overtime now.

  “You talking about Ken Tharp?”

  “Guess you have heard. Anything to that?”

  “You mean were they having an affair? Unless they were carrying on a long-running clandestine chess match up at his lake cabin, where the neighbors saw her car at all hours, I’d say there was something to it.”

  Rudy probably didn’t know it, but South Carolina divorce courts would tend to agree with his presumption of guilt. In one case, the judge talked about the conclusions drawn from “the extraordinarily ordinary or, perhaps more accurately stated, uncommonly common” evidence when a husband parked at night in a graveyard with another woman.

  I had committed the judge’s poetic opinion in Prevatte v Prevatte to memory: “When two people, a man and a woman, park by themselves at night in lonely places and purposely sit very close together, unless some other reason appears for their behavior, even the most dispassionate observer may very well infer that they are romantically disposed toward each other. Such is life.”

  Such is life, indeed.
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  Rudy said, “Adultery might make a good motive for a jealous husband to shove her off a cliff. It looks especially bad if the husband’s hell-bent on collecting the insurance money and refuses to even talk to the investigators.”

  “Yeah, but what about Tharp?” I did feel a twinge of guilt, sitting here in Maylene’s where Tharp had bared his soul. He’d meant to attack Rog, but that wasn’t what stuck hardest in my mind from our conversation.

  “You mean could Tharp have killed her? You were at Bow Falls that day. You tell me. Was he there? Could he have used a remote control device?”

  “No, not that I saw.” I was sure Rudy knew where Tharp was that morning, as well as where he wasn’t. No need to get snide. “But what about Tharp leaving the bruises?”

  “Possible,” Rudy drawled out. “If he grabbed her from behind. For what? Now that you mention it, guess there’s no telling what went on in that cabin.”

  Rudy was baiting me now.

  So my revelation about Ken Tharp’s relationship with Rinda was not news to Rudy. Around the sheriff’s office, they may even have dissected the various positions in which those bruises could have been made.

  “Who you been talking to, Counselor?”

  “Just somebody with some gossip.” Despite my respect for Rudy’s judgment, drawing attention to Eden could only strengthen the suspicions about Rog. Eden’s friendship with Rog was already destined to cause him problems. That fire didn’t need any more fuel. Besides, Eden’s attentions were so overbearing and obvious, Rudy would be developing his own suspicions without my help, if he hadn’t already.

  I changed the subject. “You need to get some rest, Rudy. You sound beat.”

  “No shit, Sherlock. First, traffic control around that danged festival, then your little friend in the fun house and that header off the falls, then some drunk goes airborne in a Camaro off the side of the mountain, and some guys here actually want to spend some vacation time with their families. Can’t imagine why I’m tired.”

  “Go home, Rudy.” I hung up. I too planned to leave the office, head up to the cabin, and paddle my little johnboat out onto the muggy, still lake.