Born To Be Wild

TEN

“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.”