Last to Know: A Novel(63)
“We are talking about my mother.” Bea spoke through tears. Harry thought Bea cried well.
He said, “I am sorry to sound so harsh but you are now free to take care of your mother. As I said I’ll make sure everything is dealt with at this end.”
“But I don’t know any funeral homes, I don’t know anything about funerals,” Bea said, sounding desperate.
Harry recalled seeing her just a day ago at a funeral at which she seemed very composed and to know exactly what was going on. “I’m e-mailing you the names of several in the area, all of whom are more than competent and reliable.”
“But where shall I bury her? We didn’t live here, I don’t have a church.”
Rossetti, who was listening to the conversation on the speakerphone, was now the one to roll his eyes in a “who’s she kidding” look. They all knew that basically there was little left of the mother after the fire. And “Bea” and “church” were two words that did not fit together.
“I’m sure you’ll work it out,” Harry was saying, already summoning up the names of funeral homes in the area on his computer and clicking the Send button that delivered them to Bea’s iPhone. “Good luck, Bea,” he said and heard her say “But—” as he clicked off.
“Now let’s see what happens,” he said to Rossetti.
“Now she’s got her hands on the money, y’mean.”
“I remember, at the beginning, you asked whether I thought she wanted to get rid of the mother,” Harry said.
“And?” Rossetti asked.
“I think you called it right, Detective.”
“So what do we do now?”
“We still have the knife the coroner removed from her eye, the one that belonged to Rose. As well as to Wally,” Harry added, a little more thoughtfully because Wally seemed too involved in this whole scenario for his comfort. “I think Bea killed her mother to get her hands on the money, she thought she would get away with it because of the fire.”
“You mean she thought her mom would simply burn up, no visible knife wounds.”
“Mom didn’t go away so fast, though. Bea should have pulled that knife out before she set her alight.” Harry heaved a regretful sigh. “All this is pure speculation, a stringing together of events that might or might not be true. Bea could be innocent and we are bad guys for even thinking badly of her.”
“I mean a girl who looks like that…” Rossetti added, remembering Bea’s cool blond young beauty.
Harry remembered only too well the scene at the hospital: Bea in the oversized flowered gown, her childish eagerness to please, to tell him what happened. He had fallen for it big-time, and he still was not convinced she was guilty of killing her mom.
“At least with the mom, there was a motive,” Rossetti said, thinking of the nine hundred thou in the bank account. “But what about Jemima?”
“That, we may never know,” Harry said.
48
As usual, Diz was keeping an eye on things, though this time he was not up in his tree, and this time he had a purpose. He was stalking Len Doutzer and he was doing it because he was worried about his mother, who, as Wally and the family had left for Boston, was now alone at the lake house with only him to protect her.
He’d noticed Len lurking around; somehow he always seemed to be where Rose was, up on the hill, or moored in a small boat on the opposite shore, unmoving. Of course Len made like he was fishing but Diz knew the lake well, knew there were no fish to be found where the man was because the water was too shallow and the sun glinted off it, sending the fish diving for darker, deeper waters. A serious fisherman would be at the far end of the lake where the hills sloped steeply and trees dipped branches into the steely water, chilled by a rippling underground stream, which probably also fed the various wells dotted around the hills, most of them now contaminated and long disused or dried up.
Today, though, Len was not even pretending to fish. He simply sat, allowing his old boat to drift, all fifteen feet of worn fiberglass, and certainly not the glamorous and expensive old wooden craft Diz longed for and might put on his Christmas list. If, that is, the Osbornes had Christmas this year. The way things were going the family might not even be together by then. Anyhow, Len was allowing his boat to drift with the current that took him past the burned wreckage of the old Havnel property when suddenly, to Diz’s surprise, he began sculling toward the shore, sliding the small boat into the shade of an overhanging tree where Diz could no longer see him.
Diz sat for an hour or more, watching, waiting, until he heard his mother calling his name and the clang of the old brass handbell that announced supper. He would have stayed longer, anxious to see what Len was up to, but he could smell burgers on the grill and his mom made the best. Served on a seeded roll, slathered with a dollop of her homemade mayo, ketchup, lettuce, tomato, and a slice of dill pickle, it resembled the one in the Burger King TV ad with the sexy girl, though Diz bet Rose’s tasted better.
He sped down to the kitchen. “Smells great,” he said, concentrating on the first juicy bite. If the great chefs of the world combined to provide any eleven-year-old with a meal, in Diz’s opinion they would never equal this.
“I don’t know whether I like your Bolognese more, though,” he said, just to tease Rose, but for once she was unresponsive.