Kitabı oku: «Dying To Play», sayfa 5

Chapter 9

Elaine managed to scarf down half her burger before she told Callahan they had to go. She had neither the time nor the inclination to drop him off at the station considering how traffic would be backed up at that time of day. Instead, she told him she had to stop by to see her mother a moment and he could wait in the car…if he didn’t mind.

He shrugged that indifferent gesture so characteristic of his personality and didn’t argue. He’d managed to shovel down his burger by that time, anyway.

Elaine parked her Jeep in the long curved drive that cut through the elegant landscape of her childhood home. The yard instantly brought back dozens of memories of touch footfall and tree-climbing exploits. There was scarcely a tree on the property that Elaine hadn’t scaled at least once. With three macho brothers, she’d learned the art of playing hard and fast very quickly. Her only sister, Judith, two years older, had preferred baking and curling hair to playing with her brothers and tomboy sister. Elaine couldn’t help smiling. She’d had the perfect childhood with the epitome of the all-American family and wonderful parents. They’d done everything together and had always been there for each other. Both her mother and her father had been heavily involved with their children’s lives. Still were for that matter.

“I’ll be quick,” she promised as she unbuckled her seat belt. Guilt nudged at her but she ignored it. This wasn’t about the case. This was personal. She didn’t want him anywhere near her personal life.

“No problem.” He surveyed the yard and the house beyond. “Nice place.”

Elaine abruptly wondered where Callahan had grown up. Did he have family? What did they think of the shambles that appeared to be his career and personal life? She frowned, shook off the foolish thought and stared out at the classic Georgian home that stood a proud two stories and a roomy five thousand square feet.

“Thanks.”

She’d just gotten the driver’s-side door open when she heard her mother’s voice.

“I didn’t know you were bringing a guest!”

Elaine cringed. Her mother was a typical Buckhead socialite. No way would she ever stand for anyone waiting in the car. Atlanta’s home of the wealthy, socially and politically prominent, Buckhead residents strictly adhered to certain codes.

“Mom, this is Special Agent Trace Callahan.”

Callahan emerged from the vehicle, offering her mother that megawattage smile, which charmed her in two seconds flat. “Mrs. Jentzen, it’s a pleasure to meet you, ma’am.” He took Lana Jentzen’s outstretched hand and brushed a kiss to the knuckles. Her mother pressed her free hand to her chest and giggled. Giggled!

Elaine’s jaw sagged in disbelief. Any possibility of damage control went out the proverbial window with that line and showy display. She would need to know where Callahan hailed from in order to determine if he’d just put on the dog for her mother or if he’d been raised a true Southern gentleman. She seriously doubted the latter, though the conclusion could very well be based on nothing more than her intense dislike for the man. Or was she confusing distrust for dislike? If one considered the way he could make her shiver in awareness…forget it. She wasn’t going there.

“Please, come in.” Lana looked from Callahan to Elaine, the blush on her cheeks giving away her pleasure.

“I’ll just wait out here,” Callahan suggested humbly.

Elaine rolled her eyes. Yeah, right. Like that was going to happen now. “Mother, we don’t have much time.”

Lana waved a hand in dismissal of her daughter’s comment. “I insist you both come in and have a glass of iced tea at the very least. For early May the weather is turning out to be beastly hot.”

Unable to slow this runaway train, Elaine followed her mother up the walk, Callahan right on her heels.

“Where’s Dad?”

“Oh, he’s on the golf course, I presume.”

Elaine felt uncertainty line her forehead. It wasn’t like her mother not to know where her father was every moment of the day. Something was definitely off kilter here.

“You have a lovely home, Mrs. Jentzen.”

Lana paused at the front door, her hostess smile firmly in place. “Call me Lana, Trace,” she urged. “You’ll make me feel old calling me ‘Mrs.’”

Trace? Now Elaine was really worried. Her mother had to be ill. Calling a stranger by his first name was not standard operating procedure for the sophisticated lady. No way.

Another ten minutes passed before Elaine got her time alone with her mother. The elegant lady had insisted on showing Trace the backyard and telling him how Elaine’s grandfather had bought this home for Lana and her husband upon the birth of their first child. They’d lived here ever since. She said the last with such remorse Elaine worried that perhaps her first thought had been right. Could her mother be ill? About to give Elaine some horrible news? Thank God she hadn’t bothered her mother with her own unfavorable report from the doctor.

“We missed you at dinner last night,” her mother said when they had at last sat down around the massive kitchen table, a place where Jentzen family meetings had taken place for as long as Elaine could remember.

Elaine closed her eyes for a second and gave herself a mental kick for not calling. The entire Jentzen clan had gathered for dinner on Monday nights for as long as she could remember. Her grandparents, parents, aunts and uncles had done so for half a lifetime before their own families had come along and drawn them into extended groups.

“There was a multiple homicide,” she explained. Her mother had been a cop’s wife her entire adult life. Not to mention the mother of three sons as well as one daughter who were all protectors of the community. She, of all people, should understand the call of duty.

“I felt certain something came up,” Lana allowed. “And of course you had no way of knowing I’d planned any sort of announcement.”

Every muscle in Elaine’s body tensed in preparation for bad news. “Give it to me straight, Mom,” she pressed. “If something is wrong, just tell me.”

Lana clasped her hands on the table in front of her and took a deep breath. “Your father and I are getting a divorce.”

If she’d said the world was coming to an end Elaine wouldn’t have been more surprised. This was impossible.

“What?”

“It’s true. We’ve discussed it at length, and divorce is the only option.”

Elaine shook her head in an attempt to clear the confusion. It didn’t work. “I don’t understand. Why would you want to get a divorce?”

“It’s a rather long story, dear. Are you sure you have time just now?”

“Mother, you cannot make an announcement like this and leave it at that.” This was impossible. Crazy. Her father couldn’t have…? “Mom, is Dad having an affair?”

“Of course not,” Lana protested, clearly mortified that Elaine would even suggest such a thing.

Thank God. “Then why would you want a divorce?”

Lana tilted her head slightly to the right and studied her daughter. “How can I explain?” She pinched her lips together and looked thoughtful for a time. “Your father and I have been married for forty-five years. He was my high school sweetheart and we married right out of college.”

And had been together ever since, Elaine wanted to add but managed to keep her mouth shut.

“He’s the only man I’ve ever known.” She glanced side to side as if concerned someone might hear her next words. “In the biblical sense.”

Elaine wanted to crawl under the table. Surely this wasn’t about sex. There were drugs for deficiencies in that department. Elaine shifted in her chair and moistened her lips. “Is that the problem? Sex?” The word came out more or less a croak. She swallowed in hopes of dampening her suddenly dry throat. The sex talk had been humiliating enough when her mother had given it to her all those years ago. That was the one area where Elaine and her mother had never ventured with any measure of comfort. They didn’t talk about boys and sex. Never had. Judith had talked about it enough with her mother for both of them. Lana had never understood why Elaine kept everything about her social life to herself.

“Yes,” her mother answered, her chin held high in abject refusal to be put off by her daughter’s discomfort with the subject. “In a way.”

Elaine had no idea what to say next. Thankfully her mother took the lead. “I love your father, don’t doubt it.” She shrugged her silk clad shoulders. “It’s just that I’m certain there must be more.”

She had to be kidding.

Elaine flared her hands in question. “In what way?”

“We’ve had a wonderful life together, your father and I. We raised you and your siblings with the utmost care. You’re all happy and well adjusted.”

If she only knew, Elaine mused silently.

“For the past ten or so years your father and I have been on our own and—” she shrugged again “—frankly we’ve discovered we have nothing in common.”

A warning went off in Elaine’s brain. “Are we talking boredom here or what?”

“Yes,” Lana enthused, evidently thrilled that her daughter appeared to understand. “I want more. I want to travel…to learn new languages and to be with other men.”

Elaine’s eyes widened in shock. “Other men?”

“Please, dear,” Lana fussed, “you sound like a parrot.”

She couldn’t take it anymore. Elaine pushed out of her chair and threw her arms in the air. The conversation had just entered the Twilight Zone. “You say you love him. You’ve been married to him for most of your life but you want to be with other men?”

Her voice echoed in the room and Elaine winced. She hoped like hell Callahan hadn’t heard that last remark. Her mother had left him in the parlor watching the noon news with a tall glass of iced tea garnished with a lemon wedge. A small tray of cookies sat nearby on an antique table for his enjoyment. Lana Jentzen never did anything halfway. That certainty was the very thing scaring the hell out of Elaine at that very moment.

Lana patted the air in a gesture that insisted Elaine take her seat once more. “It happens all the time,” she offered. “People outgrow each other. It’s not the end of the world.”

Oh, but it was.

Elaine felt as if her insides had twisted into a tattered braid. She collapsed into the chair she’d recently vacated. “Mom, you’re too old for this kind of thing.”

Lana looked taken aback. “I’m sixty-five, Elaine, I’m not dead.”

This could not be happening.

“Mom, have you talked to a counselor?” This was way over Elaine’s head. She wasn’t even sure what to say to this kind of radical decision.

“Your father and I have been in counseling for months,” she said pointedly. “It’s time to move on. It’s not like we’re going to live forever. There are things I want to do…places I want to see before I die.”

Months? How could her parents have been in counseling for that long and Elaine not know it?

“I…” What the hell did she say? Clearly her mother’s mind was made up. “I don’t know what to say to this.”

Her mother reached for her hand. “It’s a shock, I realize.” She smiled patiently. “But you’ll get used to it. Your father and I are still friends.”

Elaine resisted the nearly overwhelming urge to shake her head. Who was this woman? “Where is Dad?” The idea that he might have moved out already broadsided her next.

“He’s on the golf course, dear,” she said, her gaze searching Elaine’s as if she suspected dementia. “I told you that. Are you sure you’re all right?”

“I mean,” Elaine restated for clarification, “where is he living?”

“Why, here.” Lana surveyed the huge kitchen. “There’s plenty of room. My father bought this house for the two of us, selling the property and splitting the proceeds is out of the question. We’re adults, we can share the house.”

The image of her father bringing home a date and her mother doing the same inadvertently on the same night loomed in Elaine’s mind like the premonition of imminent doom.

Another realization scooted its way into the bizarre thoughts churning in Elaine’s brain. Maybe they really didn’t want a divorce. Maybe that was the real reason they had opted not to sell the house. Could there be hope?

“It’ll take time to adjust to the idea,” Lana said, patting her daughter’s hand. “We’ll be fine and so will you.”

A little while later Elaine and her mother hugged and said their goodbyes. Just as they reached the entry hall Elaine remembered Callahan. Boy, this announcement had really thrown her for a loop. He had wandered over to the grand piano in the corner of the room to survey the array of framed photographs scattered across its polished top. Elaine just wanted to get him and get out of here. The whole episode was entirely surreal.

Before bidding goodbye, Lana invited Callahan to stop by again anytime.

Elaine didn’t look at him or speak as they climbed back into her Jeep. She didn’t want to know if he’d overheard anything. And she damned sure wasn’t going to answer any questions. The idea that her mother might have had her eye on him made Elaine shudder. This wasn’t supposed to happen. Weren’t men the ones who were supposed to do this sort of thing? And didn’t it generally happen by age fifty?

“You have a nice family,” Callahan commented as they pulled out onto the tree-lined street.

“Thanks,” she muttered.

He was right. Nice family. Nice home. Nice neighborhood. Nice every-damned-thing. But her parents were still getting a divorce. Her mother and father had gotten married in the church, for God’s sake. How could they get a divorce?

She had to talk to her sister. Maybe Judith could shed some light on this. But there was no time now.

Elaine pointed her Jeep in the direction of the home where Brad Matthews had resided with his young family. She had to clear her mind, focus on the case. Dealing with her parents’ divorce—unbelievable as it was—would have to wait.

Her cell phone interrupted her concentration. She snagged it from her bag. “Jentzen.”

“Detective Jentzen, I’m glad I caught you.”

Connie. The chief’s secretary.

Elaine went on alert. If there had been another set of murders…she didn’t want to think that.

“Hey, Connie. Is the chief looking for me?” Even that would be better than the other possibility.

“It’s Mrs. Matthews,” Connie told her. “She won’t be able to be interviewed until one. Her husband’s family arrived this morning and they’re trying to work out funeral arrangements.”

Elaine resisted the urge to heave a sigh. Obviously, Mrs. Matthews didn’t understand that it would be a couple more days before she could move forward with a funeral, at least if she intended to inter the body.

“One o’clock. Got it.” Elaine thanked her and tossed the phone onto the console.

“Change in plans?” Callahan suggested.

“Matthews’s widow can’t see us until one.” She didn’t look in his direction. The ordeal with her mother had made her feel vulnerable. Vulnerability was something she did not intend to let Callahan see. Not if she was going to hold the spot of lead detective.

“There are some calls I could make,” he said when she stopped at the next traffic light.

Though she’d just as soon not, she knew that avoiding eye contact when she responded would be seen as intentional, so she gave him a cursory glance. That analyzing gaze latched on to hers so fast and furiously that she had to look away. Heat infused her cheeks in that brief instant.

His perceptive antenna was working overtime.

“We’ll go back to the office, then.” She had a call or two to make herself. More reports might be in from the autopsy, though Walt didn’t expect to discover anything out of the norm. A vivid image of Brad Matthews’s cold, dead body flashed across her mind.

What had made him walk into that bank and kill a close business associate? There had to be an answer. Normal people with everything to live for just didn’t go over the edge for no reason. She tamped down the urge to steal a glimpse of her companion. He’d had his reasons for taking that unintended plunge. People always did. But Elaine had no answer where Brad Matthews was concerned.

What would she say to his widow? That they were doing everything they could to nail the entire incident on her husband? And wouldn’t that be the easiest solution? Find a motive, then close the case. One more high-powered white-collar worker cracks. It happened all the time.

But this was different somehow. Just like the senseless murders at the beauty salon last week. Every instinct Elaine possessed warned that there was more than met the eye in both cases.

The only question was, would she be a good enough detective to see it?

Once back at the station, she left Callahan at her desk and disappeared into the ladies’ room. She’d be safe from interruptions there since she and Connie were the only females on the floor.

She paced the small washroom and waited for her sister to answer her phone.

“Hello. Put that down!”

Elaine stopped and stared at the phone a second. What the hell? “Judith?”

“Elaine? Oh, I’m sorry for shouting in your ear. Jared decided to try climbing the living room drapes. I don’t know what’s gotten into that child?”

Jared was four years old, the eldest of her sister’s four children. Four kids in five years. Elaine wondered on a regular basis how her sister handled the stress. But she was the perfect stay-at-home mom. And usually her kids were extremely well behaved.

“Is everything okay?” her sister inquired.

“Fine. Everything with me is fine.” A big fat lie, but she wasn’t about to go into that right now. She could understand Judith asking since Elaine rarely bothered with personal calls during duty hours.

“Good.” Another sidebar to her son to Get down! vibrated across the air waves.

“Look, if this is a bad time we can talk later,” Elaine offered. Her sister sounded harried in a way Elaine had never noticed before.

“No. No. It’s okay. What’s going on?”

Elaine leaned against the white tile wall and heaved that sigh she’d been holding in for almost an hour now. “What’s going on with Mom and Dad, Judith? Is this divorce thing for real?”

Judith released a weary sigh of her own. “It seems so.”

Elaine shook her head. “This is nuts. How can she just up and decide she wants a divorce?”

“Dad is such a homebody. Hardly leaves the house unless it’s to play eighteen holes. I think Mom is ready to do that traveling she’s always talked about. Neither of them is getting any younger, you know.”

Her mother had said the same about the travel. “Surely Dad can be persuaded to travel with her.” She resumed her pacing to ward off the mounting frustration. “If not, why doesn’t she travel alone or with some of her friends? There doesn’t have to be a divorce.”

“I think she’s feeling a little neglected as a woman,” Judith ventured cautiously, thought about it a moment, then added, “Do you know what I mean?”

Elaine felt her eyes roll back in her head. Did she know what Judith meant? Was there another woman on the planet who went without more often than Elaine? If her mother wanted to talk about neglect, Elaine could write her a book on the subject. Mostly it was her own fault, but that didn’t make her feel any better.

“What’re we going to do about this?” Taking charge was what Elaine did best. There had to be a way to fix the situation.

Judith hummed a note of uncertainty. “I don’t know, Elaine. I’ve got so many problems of my own I’m not sure I’ll be any help with this.”

Problems? What kind of problems did her sister have? She had a great husband who taught literature at a local university. He was handsome, attentive and a hopeless romantic. She had four beautiful children and a lovely home. Their mother’s inheritance had ensured that all the Jentzen children would receive a beautiful home as a gift upon the birth of their first child.

An epiphany pierced Elaine’s heart. She would never have that. Not the house; of course she would get a house. Her mother wouldn’t leave her out. But the children…she might never be able to have children of her own.

“Elaine? Are you still there?”

“Yeah. I’m here.” The whole world seemed to be going mad around her. What else did her sister want? She had it all. Her mother had it all and more! Did some sort of insanity run in the Jentzen women that struck when they should be the happiest? Maybe that’s why Elaine didn’t have a husband already. Perhaps some rebel brain cell knew that having it all would lead to insanity.

More shouting on the other end of the line. Elaine got the distinct impression that her sister’s oldest child might be on shaky ground as far as his future was concerned.

“Can we talk about this later?” Judith said in a rush. “I really have to go.”

“Sure. We’ll talk tonight.”

“Love you. Bye!”

And then she was gone. Sweet, perfect Judith. The big sister who had it all.

Considering the lives they led, if her sister and mother weren’t happy, what hope was there for Elaine?