Time for a little consult with Laidlaw, Vince decided. Laidlaw was the accounting expert the department used in white-collar-crime investigations. Raoul and Claudia had a nice business here. He wondered where the money to start it had come from. Were they pulling down a profit? So much money they could lay almost a million bucks on that stick of a girl out there?
And Fondulac's story, was there anything to it? De Vries was all bent over now, bawling like a baby, getting his back patted. It was a good act, but nothing Vince hadn't pulled himself when his ma caught him stealing papers off the stoops in Philly and reselling them on the corner.
And he thought about ancient history. It had a way of rearing up and biting you on the ass. The whole case had a smell of ancient history.
Chapter Six
OUT OF BREATH, CAROLINE SLAMMED the cabin door behind her and then stood leaning against it, gasping.
"You never did learn to enter a room like a lady," Hilda said. "You came racing through the door like the devil himself was after you." Hilda was once more seated in the morris chair. Quickly she removed the pair of red-framed reading glasses that had been perched on her nose. She stowed them in one pocket of her pink sweats and then gathered up the sheaf of papers and photographs that had been spread in her lap. Those she shuffled back into a manila envelope. Once the envelope was closed, she used the metal fastener to hold it tight.
"Douglas called," she said.
Caroline barely trusted herself to speak. "And?" she said finally.
"He wants you to call him back. At the cabin."
"What did he want?" she asked. Even as she asked the question, it puzzled her why she was carrying on this charade and acting as though everything were normal when she should have thrown herself into her mother's arms and confided in her, telling her the awful truth-that she had already called Douglas that morning only to find another woman at the cabin. But the years of acrimony between Caroline and her mother had left too much of a void between them, too much distance to be crossed all at once.
Not trusting her knees to hold her upright, Caroline sank down into the desk chair and stared at the phone as though it were her mortal enemy.
"Well?" Hilda urged impatiently. "Are you going to call him, or are you just going to sit there all day looking at the phone?"
"I'm not going to call him," Caroline said.
"Why?"
"Because I don't feel like it." Even in her present mood, it sounded to her own ears like a childish, stupid thing to say.
"Caroline," Hilda said firmly. "You have to understand. Your husband's a politician. You need to talk to him so he can give you whatever directions you need for handling yourself in this kind of situation."
"You mean like send one of his staffers out to bird-dog me and make sure I don't say or do something that could make matters worse?"
"Yes. Of course," Hilda returned mildly. There was another unspoken part to her mother's answer, the part about now that Caroline had made her bed, she would have to lie in it. And, of course, there was no need for Hilda to say it then because Hilda had said it so often, Caroline knew it by heart.
She felt her temper rising. The whole idea was absurd. Here was Caroline, an innocent bystander to a murder she personally had nothing to do with, but both her mother and her husband expected her to agree to being led around by the nose and told how to act, what to say, and how to say it. Meanwhile Douglas was free to do whatever he wanted. He had taken a woman with him to the cabin, a cabin that was, after all, half Caroline's. He was up there now, doing God knows what and giving no thought or care to any kind of scandal. The double standard inherent in that was simply too much.
All her life Caroline had been a good girl. She'd done what she'd been told and tried her best to live up to other people's expectations. Last night she had broken into the kitchen and taken food. This time, instead of knuckling under to her mother's pressure, Caroline found the strength to fight back.
"What are we doing here, Mother?" she asked.
"Doing here?" Hilda repeated. "What do you mean by that?"
"You know what I mean."
"We've both been through so much the last few months," Hilda replied smoothly. "I thought a getaway to the spa would do us both a world of good. A time-out, as it were," she added.
"Like when you used to punish me by sending me to my room?"
"A little, I suppose," Hilda agreed. "Only with better food. Back then, you made mud pies. You could just as well have been taking mud baths," she added. "You were that messy most of the time."
"This isn't funny, Mother," Caroline continued. "And it's no time for jokes, either. Why are we here, and who paid?"
"Why Douglas did, of course," Hilda answered. "You saw the check he wrote-twelve thousand dollars."
"If you own the place now, I'm sure we could have come for free."
Hilda shrugged. "Maybe we did-come for free, that is. In fact, Claudia invited us to come, both of us. Douglas gave me his check to pay for it, and I did cash it, but I can tell you Claudia de Vries never saw a penny of that money. I made certain of that."
"What do you mean?" Caroline asked.
"Go upstairs and look in your closet," Hilda ordered.
"In the closet?"
"Yes," Hilda replied. "It came this morning. UPS delivered it to the office while we were all preoccupied with what had happened to Claudia. It was heavy, so I had the deliveryman carry it upstairs."
Without saying anything more, Caroline fled up the stairs and threw open the door to the closet. Inside, her clothing had all been shoved aside in order to make room for an enormous box. As soon as she saw the size of it, she knew what it had to be. Still, not trusting her own judgment, Caroline went into the bathroom and retrieved the fingernail shears she carried in her overnight bag. Then she rushed back to the closet. It took her several minutes to chop her way through layers of protective cardboard and plastic bubble wrap, but as soon as she saw the black case she recognized it for what it was-a cello. And not just any cello. It had to be her own cello. She recognized the worn but familiar case. She placed the case on her bed and then opened it to reveal the beautifully finished instrument inside. Tears of gratitude sprang to her eyes as she caressed the familiar lines and curves and ran her fingers across strings Caroline knew almost as well as she knew her own body. Somehow her mother had returned it to her.
Leaving the instrument lying on the bed, Caroline made her way back down the stairs. "Where did you get it?" she asked in a hollow voice.
"I remembered the name of the woman who had bought it from you," Hilda answered. "All I had to do was track her down. I offered to buy it back for four thousand dollars more than she paid you for it. Believe me, she was more than happy to make a deal. Who wouldn't be? And there went Douglas's twelve thousand dollars. Money well spent, if you ask me."
Caroline was stunned. "Thank you, Mother. I can't tell you how grateful I am, but why would you do such a thing?" she asked. "Whatever possessed you?"
"Giving up everything that's yours for a man like that-a man with that kind of power-is an entirely stupid thing to do," Hilda returned. "Surely you're not really that naive, are you?"
Even though Caroline had called herself "stupid" not an hour or so earlier, it hurt to hear her mother say the same thing. Under other circumstances she might have been overjoyed to see her beloved cello once more. Now she was overwhelmed. She bit back the tears that still threatened to wash her away.