Past, Present and a Future (Going Back) Page 19

  He dashed after her and caught her pulling on her coat in the hallway. “Where are you going?”

  “I think I should leave, don’t you? This has been draining for both of us. Maybe we should take a break.”

  “This isn’t a good time to leave, Clare. Not in the middle of it.”

  “We can get back to the file tomorrow.”

  “I don’t mean the bloody file. I mean you and me—finally talking about what we did to each other. How we felt and why.”

  “I thought it was you talking about what I did to you.”

  That stopped him. “Where did you get that idea?”

  “It always boils down to that, doesn’t it Gil? How I betrayed you to the police.”

  “No it doesn’t. I mean, maybe in the beginning, when I first saw you the weekend of the christening. I admit to having negative thoughts. Cleaning out my parents’ house and finding all that hate mail—it was painful. But I knew you had to tell the police. You didn’t have a choice.”

  She finished buttoning her coat. When she looked back up at him, her eyes were dark with anger. “I’m finally glad to hear you say that, Gil. But unlike me, you did have a choice. You didn’t have to hug Rina or walk her to her friend’s house.”

  “That’s a preposterous thing to say, Clare. After what she’d just told me, I couldn’t very well say, sorry you’re pregnant but I have to go now, my girlfriend’s waiting for me.”

  “But you could have told me later, that night in the park. You could have told me why you were with her.”

  “I promised her I wouldn’t tell anyone.”

  “She was dead, Gil. How could the truth hurt her?”

  “You know how. People were talking about her, anyway—blaming her for her own murder. It was disgusting.”

  “But no one seemed to know that she was pregnant, or I’d have heard from Laura. Why is that?”

  “I don’t know. Obviously no one else knew or no one leaked it. I don’t know why,” he repeated. Her silence drove him on. “Besides, you wouldn’t have believed me anyway. I tried to explain part of what had happened but you refused to listen. You’d made up your mind and that was it.”

  Tears welled up in her eyes. “I was still in shock. We’d just made love for the first time two weeks before and suddenly I see you hugging Rina. What was I supposed to think?”

  “That’s not what I meant about making up your mind. We could have sorted out all that other stuff eventually. What held me back that night was something else. The look in your eyes when you saw me. You believed that I had killed Rina, in spite of my release.” He waited for her to deny it, but she said nothing. Her eyes were locked on his and totally unreadable. “It was all over your face, Clare,” he said.

  She turned to go out the door and he didn’t stop her.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  SHE WAS GRATEFUL for the walk. Although Gil’s house was on the edge of town, it was a mere half hour on foot back to her hotel. Their working together had been such a bad idea, she kept telling herself on the way. How many times in the past week had she left Gil’s house either on the verge of tears or brimming with irritation?

  You should have listened to those first doubts, when he suggested investigating Rina’s death. You should have recognized the impossibility of taking on that task without uncovering all those buried emotions. Most of all, you should have acknowledged a basic fact of life. You can’t go back.

  Clare was mentally played out by the time she reached her hotel. She headed straight for a hot shower and afterward, noticed the red voice-mail light blinking on her phone. As she retrieved the message, her heart rate increased.

  Was it Gil, calling to apologize? For what? the voice of reason argued. Speaking the truth? Telling you something about yourself you really didn’t want to hear?

  Clare sagged onto the edge of the bed as Fran Dutton’s message played. She’d be happy to talk to Clare about her mother and was she available for a drink about five-thirty. Clare looked at the clock radio next to the bed. Five o’clock. She quickly dialed Fran’s number and accepted the invitation. Then she called Laura, asking if she could be a bit late.

  “No problem,” Laura said. “Gil just called to say he couldn’t make it. Something came up, he said. Know anything about that?”

  A little. “Uh, I’m not sure. He didn’t say anything when I left a while ago.”

  There was a brief silence, then Laura said, “I’ll feed Emma first and we can eat whenever you show up. It’s a casserole, so it can wait a bit. But I can hardly wait to hear all your news.”

  Clare hung up. There wasn’t much information from the afternoon with Gil that she wanted to share with Laura. She rushed to finish dressing and headed for the hotel parking lot.

  Fran Dutton lived in the new subdivision of Twin Falls, on the opposite side of the river. Driving over the bridge crossing Main Street, Clare took a quick glance left to the falls and to her right, where the greater part of Twin Falls sprawled south of the river. From the bridge, she could barely make out the wooden bridge spanning the river downstream and wondered if it was still in use. It had seemed rickety years ago, when she and other Twin Falls High students took it as a shortcut home. She wondered why the town council hadn’t replaced it when they’d constructed the high school on that side of the river. Hadn’t they figured out that teenagers would be reluctant to take the long way home?

  The subdivision where Fran lived was typical of many in urban America. Concentric circles of streets merged unexpectedly into one another and appeared to change names with utter disregard for those hapless souls who might have to navigate them. Clare noticed that four or five architectural styles of houses were repeated frequently and erratically within the subdivision, upping the challenge of locating an address. She was about eight minutes late when she coasted into the driveway of what she prayed was Fran Dutton’s house.

  The woman who greeted her at the door was at least fifteen years younger than Clare’s mother. She seemed a bit harried and was wearing a tracksuit that had seen better days. “I apologize for the mess,” she said, leading Clare into a small foyer. “We’re in the middle of painting, so be careful where you step.” She gestured to tarpaulins spread over the hall floor ahead. Paint containers and other paraphernalia littered the way.

  “I hope I didn’t inconvenience you.” Clare said.

  Fran waved a hand. “No trouble, believe me. I read that you were in town recently and had been thinking about your mother. So when I got your message, I packed up my husband and sent him and the kids off to dinner and a movie. They were all happy to get out of the house.” She directed Clare to a pretty solarium off the living room. “We moved in here about six months ago.”

  Clare took a wicker chair padded with plump, chintz cushions. There was a tray of crackers and cheese on a coffee table, along with an opened bottle of white wine and two glasses. Touched by the generosity of the gesture, Clare regretted not having brought a gift of some kind. “I hope you didn’t go to any trouble,” she said.

  “I’m happy to take a break, Clare. Besides, I was pretty excited about meeting a real author—not to mention Anne Morgan’s daughter.”

  “I know you and Mom haven’t kept in touch, but she remembers you with as much fondness, believe me.”

  Fran smiled. “When I started at the bank, your mother took me under her wing. She was a wonderful role model.”

  Fran poured the wine and handed Clare a glass. “Help yourself to the nibbles,” she said, slicing a piece of Brie cheese and plopping it onto a cracker.

  Clare followed suit and for a few seconds, conversation turned to the new house and questions about their former home in the town’s center.

  “After I got my promotion at the bank,” Fran said, “we made the big decision to move. Two of my kids are already teenagers and another is going to be next year. Teenagers take up a lot of space!” She laughed.

  “Mom said you worked in her section at the bank.”

 
“Yep. I was on the verge of thirty and recently married. My husband—Peter—got a transfer here from Hartford. He’s now the manager of the Wal-Mart in the new mall. We were a bit worried about living in such a small town— I’m sure you can relate to that—but now we love it. We’ve been here eighteen years, and compared to most of the people in this subdivision who commute to Hartford, we’re old-timers.”

  “Mom said she’d call you to explain the reason for my visit.”

  Fran set down her glass of wine and straightened in her chair. The transformation to serious, take-charge businesswoman was instant and Clare had a sudden glimpse of the woman who was now vice president of First National.

  “I’ve spent many an hour these past seventeen years trying to figure out what happened to your mother.” Fran shook her head, obviously still bothered by the incident. “The whole business was so strange, right from the beginning. We didn’t even know any funds had gone missing until the day Mr. Carelli called your mom into his office. I still remember how shaken she looked when she came out. The money had apparently vanished from an old trust fund that the bank was managing. It had been set up years before your mother started at the bank and belonged to some octogenarian living in Florida. The fund sent small payments to this guy’s nursing home once a month and he’d recently died. One of his beneficiaries questioned the amount left in the fund and that got the ball rolling.”

  “What made Mr. Carelli point to Mom?”

  Fran pursed her lips. “Anne was in charge of daily debits and credits, but she also had access to an assortment of trust funds and other odd accounts the bank operated. Still, that shouldn’t have automatically made her a suspect. I mean, you’d have thought Mr. Carelli might have targeted someone like me first—a relatively inexperienced newcomer. But he never considered the loss might have been accidental. As far as he was concerned, embezzlement was the issue right from the start.”

  “From what Mom told me, it doesn’t sound like Mr. Carelli had any proof that the embezzler was her. He just kind of put two and two together.”

  “Yeah, right. And got five.” Fran grimaced. “He was one weird dude, as my son would say. One of those very patronizing, old-school bosses who really didn’t think women belonged in the executive echelon of the workplace. He was also moody. A big man with a blustery personality. It was easy to imagine how your mother might have been intimidated by him.” She paused, adding, “I tried to persuade her to go to the police to clear her name. But she seemed to think doing that would involve hiring a lawyer—which she couldn’t afford—and might end up ruining her reputation anyway.”

  Guilty by assumption. Clare saw Gil’s face in her mind’s eye that night in the park years ago. Was there a parallel here, she asked herself?

  Then she thought of her mother and the no-win predicament she’d been forced into through no fault of her own. She wondered what she might have done herself, under the circumstances. Taking care of a daughter and protecting her from vicious gossip had been the priority, rather than proving innocence. A lump formed in her throat and for a minute, she couldn’t speak. She stared at the wineglass on the table in front of her, the dancing sparkles of light reflected in it.

  Fran reached over and patted her arm. “Your mother did the only thing she could do, in that situation. It wasn’t fair, but she told me the day she left that you had been through enough what with the murder—of that high school student and a breaking up with a boyfriend. She couldn’t bear to add more stress to your life.”

  Tears blurred Clare’s field of vision. She saw a tissue thrust at her and grasped it, dabbing her eyes and blowing her nose. When she looked across at Fran, the older woman gave her a gentle smile.

  “She never said a word about any of this,” Clare explained. “Not even when I was an adult.”

  “That’s the kind of person your mother is,” Fran said. “I’m just sorry we haven’t kept in touch. My life is hectic these days, but I know that’s no excuse. I’m eager to do something for Anne now that I have the opportunity.”

  “I appreciate that,” Clare said, regaining her composure. “But what can you do? It’s so long ago now and it sounds like there was little evidence at the time, anyway.”

  “It’s a long shot, true. But at least I can try. My current office happens to be the one Mr. Carelli used back then. I bet the old files are still hanging around somewhere. Nothing seems to get tossed out at the bank.”

  “Are there any other people at the bank who were there at the time?”

  “A few. I’ll nose around and see what I can learn.”

  “This is so kind of you,” Clare blurted.

  “Hey, I’m doing this for Anne and my own guilty conscience.” At Clare’s puzzled frown, she added, “For not speaking up at the time. I was afraid to jeopardize my new job.”

  Clare smiled and, happening to notice the time, said, “I really have to go.” She stood up.

  “Is there a deadline for this?” Fran accompanied Clare through the living room back to the front hall.

  “Kind of.”

  “Then I’ll start first thing in the morning. You’ll still be at the hotel, right?”

  “Yes.” Impulsively, Clare hugged her. “Thanks again, Fran. I can see why Mom has never forgotten you!”

  “Likewise, believe me. I’ll give you a ring as soon as possible.”

  On the drive to the Kingsways’, Clare decided her conversation with Fran would be a good story for Laura. One that would veer completely away from Gil Harper. When she related it after dinner later, Clare knew her instincts had been on target.

  Laura was shocked but, at the same time, eager for details. “This is incredible,” she gasped. “Your poor mother, to have to go through that all alone. Why didn’t she tell anyone?”

  Clare shrugged. She could understand, but doubted that Laura’s limited perception of human weakness would be able to. As much as she cared for her longtime friend, she knew all too well that Laura measured everyone else’s efforts, or lack thereof, by her own personal benchmark. “She probably was afraid that people would believe she was guilty. You know the saying—where there’s smoke…?”

  “That’s ridiculous! She was innocent. She should have proclaimed it loud and clear.”

  “Well, let’s hope that woman—what was her name?—can find something out,” Dave said.

  “Fran Dutton. Yes, I hope so, too.” Clare set her empty teacup down on the table. “Let me help you clear up, Laura, and then I ought to be going.”

  “No, no. I’ll do it later. You know, Tia’s only been here a day and already I’ve blessed her presence a hundred times.”

  Clare smiled at the hyperbole. “She’s working out, then?”

  “So far so great. It was wonderful to be able to hand Emma over to her at four o’clock and go do some shopping on my own. Even making dinner was a pleasure.”

  “That’s reassuring,” quipped Dave. “Maybe the quality will continue to rise, too.”

  Laura gave him a playful poke on the shoulder. “I’ve asked her to stay on every second weekend and she’s agreeable as long as her mother says it’s okay. So now,” she said, her voice assuming a conspiratorial tone, “what’s the latest with you and Gil?”

  Clare’s heart sank. She figured Dave had caught something in her face for he swiftly interjected, “Laura, give it a rest.” He reached for his crutches and struggled to his feet. “Clare, I’m heading to bed now. I’ve got an early doctor’s appointment. You be careful, okay? With all this investigating, you never know what ugly secrets you’ll overturn.”

  “I will, Dave. Good night.”

  As soon as he left the room, Laura asked, “Well?”

  “Well, what?”

  “Don’t give me that, Morgan. We go back too far. Why didn’t he come for dinner with you?”

  Clare hesitated then said, “To be honest Laura, we, uh, had an argument and I really can’t explain what it was all about. I’m sorry, but I do have to go, Laura.” She turned aw
ay from the disappointment in her friend’s face and moved into the hall for her coat. “By the way, did you get an answer back from your dad? About Gil’s father and that job?”

  “No, they were out. But I left a message so when I do hear from him, I’ll let you know.” She trailed behind Clare to the door. “You know, this whole business with your mother, Gil’s father and even Rina, probably goes a lot deeper than we think. Don’t you agree?”

  Reflecting on what she and Gil had learned that day, Clare gave a firm nod. “I think we’ve just scratched the surface, Laura. And after what I heard from Fran, I can’t help but think my mother was a scapegoat for someone.”

  “But why, Clare? It doesn’t make sense.”

  Those words were still on Clare’s mind fifteen minutes later when she was climbing out of her car in the parking lot behind the hotel. The lot was on a side street running off the continuation of Riverside Drive that fronted the hotel and was eerily empty at nine o’clock. Clare walked briskly, pulling up the collar of her trench coat against the wind gusting down from the cliffs on the far side of the river. She had just rounded the corner when she heard rapid footsteps behind her. Before she could turn around, someone ran into her, pushing her to the ground.

  Her hands flew out in defense, breaking her fall. She was aware of her purse flying off her shoulder and as she raised her head, thought she would see someone running away with it. But the figure dashing across the street toward the intersection wasn’t carrying a purse. And as soon as he emerged into the spillover of light from the hotel entrance, Clare recognized her attacker. Jason Wolochuk.

  GIL MIGHT HAVE MISSED the call entirely, had he not bothered to check his messages. He’d purposely kept his cell phone turned off, in case Clare decided to apologize. As if. After she’d stormed out of the house, he’d headed right for the beer store. Then, beer in hand, he’d gone through the entire police file. The exercise failed to improve his state of mind, which had taken a dive after the argument with Clare.