Born to Be Wild (7 page)

“Oh, I suppose you've heard some gossip, but you really shouldn't believe it.”

“Tell me, Mrs. Hildebrand.”

“No, there was nothing, really. They were having a rough patch, that's all. All couples have difficult times occasionally, and they were no exception. There wasn't anything they couldn't patch up.”

And pigs fly
. Jack made his choice and took his shot. “I know Jason was having an affair, Mrs. Hildebrand. It's easier if you just tell me about it.”

He'd hit it on the mark. Not a flicker of surprise in her eyes. Her chin went up again, as if daring him to disagree. “They never spoke to me about it.”

“What does Marci do outside the home, Mrs. Hildebrand?”

“She works at home. She's an artist. The Flynt Gallery in Portland sells her watercolors. The sailboats over there, those are some of hers.”

Jack looked at the grouping of six rather small watercolors, beautifully framed, on the wall beside the fireplace. They seemed rather bland to him. On the other hand, he'd never cared much for watercolors.

“Was she financially independent?”

“Yes. No. Who can say? I don't know exactly how much she earns from her paintings. But I do know she's becoming quite popular. You'll have to ask her.”

“Was Marci having an affair?”

“No! You mustn't speak like that, Chief. She's a good girl, she wanted children. Anything that's happened—it's not her fault.”

So, had she found out her husband was betraying her and—what? Bashed him over the head and in the face?

Pat Bigelow said easily, “I think it's time you leave that subject, Chief.”

Jack wanted to drop-kick Pat Bigelow out the front window, but he couldn't, and so he nodded. “Can you think of anyone who didn't like your son-in-law?”

Olivia Hildebrand looked down at the wedding ring on her finger. After a moment, she shook her head.

Milo Hildebrand came back into the living room, carrying two mugs. He held one out to Jack. Jack rose.

“Thanks, Milo. I think I'll see if Mrs. Maynard is up to seeing me for a few minutes.”

Olivia jumped to her feet. “Let me go up, let me see if she's awake—”

She seemed frantic. Did she want to warn Marci that he knew about Jason's affair? He'd soon see. Jack said easily, “I'd appreciate that, Mrs. Hildebrand.”

He heard her footfalls on the stairs, and turned back to Milo. He sipped at the coffee and nodded. It was rich and very hot. “I hear you're a pretty good golfer.”

Pat Bigelow said, “Be careful here, Chief—”

Milo held up his hand. “Been golfing since my dad first took me out when I was nine years old. Olivia and I golf quite a bit.”

“What brand of clubs do you use?”

“TaylorMade. Why?”

“Did Jason Maynard golf too?”

Milo nodded. “He really liked to play the club course. He wasn't all that good, but he was working at it. He and I went out once a week, usually on Saturday mornings.”

“What was his brand of clubs?”

“Ping. Why?” Milo Hildebrand's eyes clouded. “Oh, damn. He was killed with a golf club, a Callaway?”

Jack nodded. “Yeah, a driver, specifically, a Big Bertha Fusion FT-3. Can you think offhand of anyone who uses Callaways at the club?”

Milo nodded. “I can think of a few people, but it's the caddies and the people at the pro shop you should talk to.”

Mrs. Hildebrand was back more quickly than Jack had expected. “I don't understand her.” She flapped her hands. “I thought she'd want to be alone, but no, Marci insists on speaking to you.” She cut her eyes to Pat Bigelow, cleared her throat. “I told her you were here, Ms. Bigelow, that you would make sure the chief didn't bother her, but she said she wanted to see him alone.”

And you don't want that,
Jack thought.

Pat Bigelow said, “I don't think that's such a good idea, Mrs. Hildebrand.” And she walked toward Jack. “Shall we, Chief?”

Jack saw no hope for it and nodded.

Mrs. Hildebrand trailed along behind them up the stairs. When they reached the bedroom door, Jack asked Mrs. Hildebrand to wait outside. Pat Bigelow nodded to her. He knocked lightly, then went into the bedroom. It must have been Marci Maynard's room for many years. It had stayed a teenager's room, very girlie-girl, with lots of pink and white and rock star posters from ten years ago. And watercolors, mostly sailboats, like her work on the walls downstairs.

Marci Maynard was propped up in bed, wearing a bathrobe, her hair pulled back in a ponytail. Her eyes were swollen from crying, and without makeup. She was as pale as the white bedroom walls. She was a big-boned woman, like her father, solid and fit, about thirty, with her mother's vague gray eyes. She looked ten years older than the last time he'd seen her, only this morning. But her gaze was focused, no drugs. Good.

Then she looked at Pat Bigelow. “I told my mother I wanted to see Chief Wolf alone.”

Pat Bigelow's voice was gentle. “I'm here to make sure you're not harassed, Mrs. Maynard.”

“Please leave. I don't need any protection.”

“But—”

Marci Maynard stared her down. Pat Bigelow gave Jack a long look, shrugged, and said over her shoulder as she left, “I'll be downstairs with your parents.”

“Good,” Marci said when Jack closed the bedroom door. “I've never liked her.”

Jack wanted to pursue that, but not now. He thanked her for seeing him and expressed his condolences. She was quiet, but alert.

He pulled up a chair beside the bed and straddled it, his arms over the back. “Tell me, Mrs. Maynard, do you know where your husband was all night?”

He saw her consider a lie, saw the instant she knew it wouldn't fly. She shrugged, looked him dead in the eye. “We had an argument. He slammed out of the house about nine o'clock. I went to bed at ten, after watching a rerun of
Alias.
When the alarm rang this morning, I saw that he hadn't come home. I was really mad, Chief Wolf, really mad. I made coffee, went out to get the newspaper, through the garage. I saw him lying on the garage floor, between the cars.” She looked faintly disconnected. “There was blood splattered all over the Mercedes. It's white, you know. It looked sort of like a postmodern painting. I remember thinking it reminded me of Randolph Crier's work. I remember thinking Jason loves that car, he'll be—” Her eyes misted up again. “Then I realized he was dead and he won't care now, will he?”

Jack kept his voice low and calm. “No, he won't care now. You never awoke during the night?”

“No, I'm a sound sleeper.”

“Tell me what you fought about, Mrs. Maynard.”

Again, an instant when she considered a lie, and then she said, “Who cares who knows the truth now? The thing is, Jason had a girlfriend over in Cloverdale.”

“And her name is…?”

Marci Maynard shook her head. “I have no idea. I never wanted to know. I'll bet everyone knows her name but me.”

“Including your parents?”

“My father, certainly. My father knows everything. When I was growing up, I could never get away with anything. He always found out. Always. My mother? If she knows, she'd force herself to lock it away, real deep.”

“How do you know his girlfriend lives in Cloverdale?”

She frowned, looked down at her hands. “I suppose I must have heard someone say something about Jason going over to Cloverdale a lot these days. Yes, that's it.”

“Who said that?”

“I don't remember. Ask my dad, he probably knows all about it, like I said.”

“I'll ask him. How long was this affair going on?”

Marci pleated the white chenille bedspread. “Maybe three months, give or take.”

“How did you find out about it?”

“A wife knows, Chief Wolf. A wife always knows. There doesn't have to be lipstick on a shirt collar. Jason was different, in bed, out of bed. I knew, and last night, he admitted it when I accused him.”

“Had you spoken to him about this before your fight last night?”

“No.”

“Why?”

“Last night was the very first time he wanted to leave during the evening. He even made up this stupid lie about seeing a client so he could get away. Like I said, he'd never done that before. I couldn't very well ignore it any longer, now could I? So I called him on it.”

“He admitted to the affair but he didn't tell you her name.”

“No, he didn't, and believe me, I asked him several times. But he did go on with the usual crap about how she was the one who really understood him, who gave him what he needed. I'll be honest here, Chief Wolf, if I'd had a gun I might have shot him, right there in the middle of the living room.” She paused a moment, looking toward her white-lace-curtained window. She looked up at him again. “If I had, then at least at his funeral, we could still tell it was Jason.”

That was surely the truth. “Were you ever tempted to get back at him, Mrs. Maynard? To have an affair yourself? Maybe a brief one? For revenge?”

She looked at him straight on. “Yes, I thought about it. In fact, I even cruised the Night Owl last week, half looking to see if there was a guy there for me, a guy bigger and better looking than Jason. I didn't see anyone who interested me. Then I realized how stupid it was.”

“You play golf, Mrs. Maynard?”

She nodded. “Most everyone we know plays golf.”

“Did either of you own Callaways?”

“My clubs are Titleist. Jason wouldn't ever let me touch his Pings.”

“Where do you keep your golf clubs?”

“They're in the front hallway closet along with a pile of athletic junk Jason never used.” She looked up at him blankly. “I wonder what the etiquette is about selling his sports stuff?”

Was she so bitter that not even his murder mattered? He asked her abruptly, “Mrs. Maynard, did you kill your husband?”

She flattened her back against the bed headboard. “No! Of course I didn't!”

“Who do you think killed him?”

“I don't know, Chief. I'd ask that Cloverdale bimbo, whoever she is.”

“Why?”

Her eyes glittered. “Because the bottom line is, Chief, that there was no way Jason was going to divorce me. He wanted my father's company, and I came with it. After what happened between us last night, he probably told her that. She realized he would never marry her and followed him back to the house. She could have brought the club with her.”

Somehow Jack couldn't imagine the planning had such cold logic, not with the crazy rage the killer had shown.

“Do you know anyone who owns Callaway clubs?”

She thought a moment, at least he thought she was considering it. “Sure, I've seen lots of them at the club, but I can't think of anyone in particular right off the top of my head.”

Jack walked back downstairs and found Milo Hildebrand in his study, alone. He gently closed the door.

“Milo, I see your wife isn't here.”

“No. I asked Pat to take her to her doctor. Olivia didn't want to see you again.”

“So you decided you didn't need to have Ms. Bigelow here to protect you?”

Milo laughed. “Not likely, Chief. What can I do for you?”

“You can tell me about Jason's affair. You can tell me the woman's name.”

Milo Hildebrand sat behind his desk. He said nothing for a moment, just tapped his pen lightly against the desk blotter, a handsome dark green wood-and-leather affair.

“I wondered if Marci would tell you. Well, now that she has I suppose there's nothing to protect her from.” He shrugged. “I have no clue who she is. Maybe she's a golfer at the club since he was killed with a driver.” He nodded. “Yes, I know it wasn't one of Jason's. I did ask Jason about it, but he told me he was faithful to my daughter, swore he'd never hurt Marci. So unless I found out for sure he was lying to me, there was nothing I could do.”

“But you suspected him before Marci knew for sure?”

“Yeah, I suppose I did. It was clear something was wrong between them. The fact is since Jason was a salesman, he spent a good deal of time outside the office. He could have seen her as often as he liked.”

“Did you notice if his work suffered recently? Fewer sales, say, for the past three months?”

“No, if anything, I'd have to say they went up.” He shrugged. “In fact I'd say Jason didn't seem to be suffering in any way before he died.”

Late Thursday afternoon Mary Lisa Beverly left the terminal of the Goddard Bay Regional Airport outside the small town of Inverness. It was only a fifteen-minute boat ride to Goddard Bay, or an hour's drive on the coast road that wove south, then skimmed the southern end of the bay to downtown Goddard Bay.

Mary Lisa felt good to be home, and a state away from the person who'd tried to run her down. Before she'd left Los Angeles, Detective Vasquez had brought her a list of 111 names of people who owned a 2000 LeSabre but she hadn't recognized any of them.

Only Lou Lou and Elizabeth and her agent at Trident Media knew where she'd gone. It was a relief to leave L.A., what with the
National Enquirer
and the
Star
carrying the photos Puker had snapped of her laid out on a gurney looking pathetic and dazed. The captions beneath the photos ranged from “Drunk Soap Star Hit by Passing Car” to “Mary Lisa Beverly Run Down by Angry Lover.” If she'd seen Puker she would have tried to rip his throat out. At least the photos were inside and not staring at the world from the cover.

At least her hip no longer looked like Australia. The massive bruise had retreated to the size of Mississippi, and all the vivid shades had muted. She'd taken off the last Band-Aid this morning and found she'd not needed any more makeup to cover the healing cuts and scrapes.

She drove her rented red Cadillac convertible down the narrow two-lane coast road, crossed a small bridge over a bay inlet, and headed down to the tiny hamlet of Berrytown, the beginning of her favorite part of the trip, the southern stretch of the coastline toward Goddard Bay.

She hadn't been home in three years and had to admit she was worried about how it would go. Still, some primal part of her recognized the air, the way it smelled, the way it settled on her skin. She breathed in deeply, enjoyed the warmth of the sun on her face, and knew that from one minute to the next, the rain could pour down, not at all like Southern California.

She drove slowly, even stopping once to take in the sand dunes that glowed golden beneath the afternoon sun.

When she turned onto Central Boulevard and stopped for her first red light, the first person she saw was Chief of Police Jack Wolf, a big man with a hard face and intense blue eyes that were too smart and seemed to see too much. He was walking purposefully, dressed in dark gray slacks, white shirt, no tie, and a dark brown leather jacket. He appeared deep in thought. And then, for no good reason, he looked up at the convertible, and saw her. He did a little double take, as if he couldn't believe who it was. His hard face seemed to turn to stone. He did not look like a happy man, definitely not ready to do handsprings at the sight of her. Well, big surprise there, not after he'd tossed her in jail before she'd left three years before. She gave him a sweet smile and a jaunty little wave, but she wasn't about to stop and have a nice little tête-à-tête with him.

Some things never changed, she thought, as she continued down Central Boulevard, past a good dozen downtown stores she'd known since she was a child, having arrived in Goddard Bay with her family at the age of five. She breathed in the clear, sharp bay air, glad she'd rented a convertible, and made a note to check out the new boutiques. The town seemed to be thriving with the growing tourist trade.

She waved at Peter Perlman, owner of Pete's Paint Store, who yelled a greeting at her and grinned his head off. His place was gossip central in town, so by nightfall everyone in Goddard Bay would know Mary Lisa Beverly was back.

She wondered as she drove toward her parents' house on Riverview Drive how her mother and sisters would greet her.

 

MARY
Lisa walked the neat flagstone path to the front door, looking around her as she walked, as if checking out a set for a shoot. Nothing had changed. Her mother had always loved flowers, and they were still everywhere, bursting with wild color in the late spring, the scents of the roses mixing with the scent of the jasmine on the light breeze. At the entry, beside the beautifully stenciled glass doors, Mary Lisa touched her finger to the doorbell and wondered what role she would be called upon to play in this upcoming scene with her mother. The return of the prodigal daughter? No, that would require her mother to show a bit of joy at the sight of her. Well, who knew? It had been three years. Her father had visited her perhaps a dozen times in L.A., even helped her through the experience of buying her first house, in Malibu. But her mother had never come, not that she'd wanted her to. And she hadn't asked her father. She hadn't wanted him to have to make excuses.

So why did I come back here? Fact is, New York's lovely this time of year. So is London. So is Grapevine, Texas. People don't change, they simply become more so. And the problem with being gone for three years is that you forget the bone-deep hurt waiting for you until it's too late.

It was too late. She rang the doorbell again, and heard soft footfalls approaching.

The door opened. Her mother saw her daughter standing there, her hair windblown, big sunglasses covering half her face, the handle of the wheeled carry-on in her hand. There was a moment of silence, of bland scrutiny, and then, “Well, it's nice that you've come back, dear.”

Not promising.
Mary Lisa made no move to embrace the elegant woman who stood in front of her, the woman who was her mother. She wasn't stupid. She took off her sunglasses and slipped them into the bulging side of her hobo bag, which weighed five pounds on a light day, and gave her mother a big smile. “Would you be interested in some Tupperware, ma'am?”

“Sorry, dear,” her mother said without pause, “all our storage containers are glass.”

“That was a good line, Mother.”

“Where do you think you got that mouth of yours?”

Hey, maybe we've got some softening here
. At least some recognition. “How are you doing?”

Her mother looked at Mary Lisa's single carry-on and stepped back. “Do come in, dear, we can't have you standing there.” Her mother turned away from her and walked toward the living room. She called out from the doorway, “Betty, would you please bring some tea and two cups? We have an unexpected visitor with a carry-on.”

Unexpected visitor? Well, that was better than an unwelcome visitor, or maybe it was a euphemism. The living room looked the same as it had three years ago, with one new addition, a side chair with dark green satin upholstery that looked vaguely Regency, another jewel set in her mother's beautiful living room with the rest of her nineteenth-century English antiques. Mary Lisa sat down in it across from her mother. For the first time she saw faint lines of dissatisfaction around her mouth. What did her mother have to be unhappy about?

In that moment, looking around at the magnificent, light-filled living room with its precious old furniture, Mary Lisa saw herself as a girl, carefully polishing all those chairs, the two sofas, the precious marquetry table. She remembered stained fingers and criticism.

Mary Lisa said, “It's been a long time, Mom, too long. I don't have to go back until Sunday. I thought I'd come for a visit, see how everyone was doing.”

“Everyone is fine. But of course you saw your father two months ago.” Her mother frowned when Betty walked into the living room, carrying a tray holding more than the tea and two cups she'd ordered.

Betty Harmon said, “Oh, Mary Lisa, hello! It is so good to see you again. Mrs. Abrams heard your voice, said you loved her spice cake, and she was so happy that she had a bit left, just for you.”

Betty stood beaming at Mary Lisa in the face of her mother's silence.

Mary Lisa was on her feet in an instant. She hugged Betty and leaned back to look down at all five feet two inches of her. “How wonderful to see you. Those dimples, how I always envied you those dimples.” Her mother was waiting to lambaste her; Mary Lisa knew the signs. Even after three years of not having an occasion to even think about it, she threw herself into the breach as if she'd never been gone. She continued talking, nonsense really, while Betty poured tea, smiling and laughing, never took a breath while Betty sliced her a piece of spice cake, and finally turned to ask her mother if she'd like a slice. Her mother said, “That's quite enough, Mary Lisa. Betty, no cake for me. Now, Mary Lisa will be staying until Sunday, so if you would make certain her room is ready…” She raised a brow to her daughter. “This means three nights?”

Mary Lisa nodded, wishing she could simply get up, grab her suitcase and her slice of spice cake, and march back out the front door.

“Yes, ma'am.” Betty turned and left the living room, seemingly oblivious of the displeasure in Mrs. Beverly's voice, but Mary Lisa knew she wasn't. Deaf or blind, you could still feel the freeze.

“Mrs. Abrams insists on making the spice cake for your father. No one else eats it. No one else likes it.”

“Good, that means I get to finish it off before Dad gets home.”

Kathleen Beverly was as tall as her daughter, and her black hair was cut in a bob and untouched by gray due to her hairdresser's diligence. She looked her daughter up and down. “I'm surprised you're eating that. I understand the camera adds ten pounds.”

“That's true. Aren't I lucky I have Dad's genes?” She knew that even with a good dose of his genes, she still had to watch what she ate, and exercise like mad, but she didn't feel like conceding the point. “He's eaten everything in sight for as long as I can remember and never gains an ounce.”

Her mother nodded, not looking all that happy about it. Mary Lisa didn't blame her.

She gave her mother a sunny smile. “He told me once that he and I were aliens and that I'd surely bless him when I grew up. He was right, I do. Is Kelly engaged yet to her Prince Charming? She e-mailed me about him.”