The question caused her to focus on me with interest and I guessed that she brought a considerable intelligence to any matter involving money. She raised an eyebrow ever so slightly.
“He will. He came into his trust when he was twenty-one. Why do you ask?”
“I like to know who I’m reporting to,” I said. “What’s your feeling about his claim that someone’s trying to kill him?”
She took a moment to respond, shrugging delicately. “It’s possible. The police seem convinced that someone forced him off that bridge. Whether it was premeditated, I have no idea.” Her voice was distinct, low, and intense.
“From what Bobby says, it’s been a long nine months.”
She ran a thumbnail along her pantleg, directing her comments to the crease. “I don’t know how we survived it. He’s my only child, the light of my life.”
She paused, smiling slightly to herself, and then looked up at me with an unexpected shyness. “I know ail mothers must talk like this, but he was special. He really was. Even from infancy. Smart, alert, sociable, quick. And gorgeous. Such a beautiful little boy, easygoing and affectionate, funny. He was magical.
“The night of the accident, the police came to the house. They weren’t able to notify us until four in the morning because the car wasn’t discovered for a while and then it took hours to get the two boys up the side of the mountain. Rick died instantly, of course.”
She broke off and I thought at first she’d lost her train of thought. “Anyway. The doorbell rang. Derek went down, and when he didn’t come back, I grabbed a robe and went down myself I saw two policemen in the foyer. I thought they’d come to tell us there was a burglary in the neighborhood or an accident on the road out front. Derek turned around and he had this awful look on his face. He said, ‘Glen, it’s Bobby.’ I thought my heart had stopped.”
She looked up at me and her eyes were luminous with tears. She laced her fingers together, making a steeple of her two index fingers, which she rested against her lips. “I thought he was dead. I thought they’d come to tell me he’d died. I felt a spurt of ice, like I’d been stabbed. It started in my heart and spread through my body ‘til my teeth chattered. He was at St. Terry’s by then. All we knew at that point was he was still alive, but barely. When we got to the hospital, the doctor didn’t give us any hope at all. None. They told us there were extensive injuries. Brain damage and so many broken bones. They said he’d never recover, that he’d be a vegetable if he survived. I was dying. I died because Bobby was dying and it went on for days. I never left his side. I was crazy, screaming at everyone, nurses, doctors …”
Her gaze flattened and she lifted an index finger, like a teacher who wants to make a point very clear. “I’ll tell you what I learned,” she said carefully. “I understood I couldn’t buy Bobby’s life. Money can’t buy life, but it can buy anything else you want. I’d never used money that way, which seems odd to me now. My parents had money. My parents’ parents had money. I’ve always understood the power of money, but I’d never wielded it with quite such effect. He had the best of everything. The best! Nothing was spared.
And he pulled out of it. Having endured so much, I’d hate to think someone did it deliberately. To all intents and purposes, Bobby’s life is ruined. He’ll be all right and we’ll find a way for him to live productively, but only because we’re in a position to make that happen. The losses are incalculable. It’s miraculous he’s come this far.”
“You have any theories about why someone might try to kill him?” i She shook her head.
“You said Bobby has his own money. Who benefits if he dies?”
“You’d have to ask him that. He has a will, I’m sure, and we’ve discussed his leaving his money to various charities … unless of course, he marries and has legitimate heirs of his own. You think money might be the motive?”
I shrugged. “I tend to look at that first, especially in a situation like this when it sounds like there’s a lot.”
“What else could it be? What could anyone have against him?”
“People murder for absurd reasons. Someone gets into a rage over something and retaliates. People get jealous or want to defend themselves from a real or imagined attack. Or they’ve done something wrong and they kill to cover it up. Sometimes it doesn’t even make that much sense. Maybe Bobby cut someone off in a lane change that night and the driver followed him all the way up the pass. People go nuts in cars. I take it he wasn’t in the middle of a hassle with anyone?”
“Not that I was aware of”
“Nobody mad at him? A girl friend maybe?”
“I doubt it. He was going with someone at the time, but it was a fairly casual relationship from what I could tell. Once this happened, we didn’t see much of her. Of course, Bobby changed. You don’t come that close to death without paying a penalty. Violent death is like a monster. The closer you get to it, the more damage you sustain … if you survive at all. Bobby’s had to pull himself out of the grave, step by step. He’s different now. He’s looked into the monsters face. You can see the claw marks on his body everywhere.”
I glanced away from her. It was true. Bobby looked like he had been attacked: torn and broken and mauled. Violent death leaves an aura, like an energy field that repels the observer. I’ve never looked at a homicide victim yet without a quick recoil. Even photographs of the dead chill and repulse me.
I shifted back to the matter at hand. “Bobby said he was working for Dr. Fraker at the time.”
“That’s right. Jim F rakers been a friend of mine for years. That s why Bobby was hired at St. Terry’s, as a matter of fact. As a favor to me.”
“How long had he worked there?”
“At the hospital itself, maybe four months. He’d been working for Jim in Pathology for two months, I think.”
“And what did he actually do?”
“Cleaned equipment, ran errands, answered the phone. It was all routine. They’d taught him to do a few lab tests and sometimes he monitored machinery, but I can’t imagine his job entailed anything that would endanger his life.”
“He had his degree from UCST by then, I gather,” I said, repeating what Bobby’d told me.
“That’s right. He was working temporarily, hoping to get accepted to med school. His first applications had been turned down.”
“How come?”
“Oh, he got cocky and only applied to about five schools. He’d always been an excellent student and he’d never failed at anything in his life. He miscalculated. Med schools are ferociously competitive and he simply didn’t get accepted to the ones he tried for. It set him back on his heels for a time, but he’d rallied, I think. I know he felt the job with Dr. Fraker was valuable, because it gave him some exposure to disciplines he wouldn’t otherwise have known about until much later in the game.”
“What else was going on in his life at that point?”
“Not a lot. He went to work. He dated. He did some weight lifting, surfed now and then. He went to movies, went out to dinner with us. It all seemed very ordinary at the time and it seems very ordinary looking back.”
There was another avenue I needed to explore and I wondered how she would react. “Were he and Kitty involved with one another sexually?”
“Ah. Well, I can’t really answer that. I have no idea.”.
“But it’s possible.”
“I suppose so, though I don’t think it’s likely. Derek and I have been together since she was thirteen. Bobby was eighteen, nineteen, something like that. Out of the house at any rate. I do think Kitty was smitten with him. I don’t know how he felt about her, but I can’t believe a thirteen-year-old would interest him in the least.”
“She’s grown up pretty fast from what I’ve seen.”
She crossed her legs restlessly, wrapping one around the other. “I don’t understand why you’re pursuing this point.”
“I need to know what was going on. He was anxious about her tonight and more than relieved when he found out she was all right. I wondered how deep the connections ran.”
“Oh. I see. A lot of his emotionalism is the aftermath of the accident. From what I’m told, it’s not uncommon for people who’ve suffered head injury. He’s moody now. Impatient. And he overreacts. He weeps easily and he gets very frustrated with himself.”