The Last Honest Woman (8 page)

He'd already interviewed several people about Chuck Rockwell. Opinions and feelings about the man were varied, but none of them were middle-of-the-road. The one firm fact Dylan had picked up was that people had either adored Rockwell or detested him. Dylan picked up the tape marked Stanholz and turned it over in his hand.

Grover P. Stanholz had been Chuck's original backer, a wealthy Chicago lawyer with a love of racing and personal ties to the Rockwells. For ten years he'd played father, mentor and banker to Rockwell. He'd seen the young driver go from an eager rookie to one of the top competitors on the circuit. Just over a year before his death, Stanholz had pulled the financial rug out from under his famous protégé.

Thoughtful, Dylan slipped the tape into the recorder and ran it nearly to the end. It only took him a moment to find the spot he was looking for.

"Rockwell was a winner, a money-maker and a friend." Dylan's own voice came through the speaker, low and distinct. Automatically he turned the volume down so that the sound reached no farther then the end of his desk. "Why, when he was favored to win the French Grand Prix, did you pull out as his backer?"

There was a long silence, then a rustling sound. Dylan remembered that Stanholz had drawn out a cigar and taken his time unwrapping it. "As I explained, my interest in Chuck wasn't simply financial. I had been a close friend of his father's, was a friend of his mother's." There was another silence as Stanholz lit his cigar. "When Chuck started out, he was already a winner. You could see it in his eyes. The beauty was, he had a tremendous love and respect for the sport. He was… special."

"How?"

"He was going straight to the top. Whether I had backed him or he'd had to scramble to find the money to race, he was going to the top."

"Couldn't he have used the Rockwell money?"

"To race?" Stanholz's laugh came as a wheeze over the tape. "Chuck's money was tied up tight in trust. Janice adored that boy. She'd have never released the money so he could drive at 150 mites an hour. Believe me, she fried me for doing it, but the boy was hard to resist." It came on a sigh, wistful, regretful. "Men like Chuck don't come along every day. Racing takes a certain arrogance and a certain humility. It takes common sense and a disregard for life and limb. It's a balance. He was devoted to his profession and eager to make a name for himself. I've always wondered if the trouble was that he won too much too soon. Chuck began to see himself as indestructible. And unaccountable."

"Unaccountable?"

There was another pause here, a hesitation, then a quiet sigh. "Whatever he did, however he did it, was all right, because of who he was. He forgot, if you can understand what I mean, that he was human. Chuck Rockwell was on a collision course with himself. If he hadn't crashed in Detroit, he'd have done so elsewhere. I felt pulling out as his backer might give him something to think about."

"What do you mean, he was on a collision course with himself?"

"Chuck was racing his own engine. Sooner or later he was going to burn out."

"Drugs?"

"I can't comment on that." It was a lawyer's voice, dry and flat.

"Mr. Stanholz, it's been rumored that Rockwell had been using drugs, most specifically cocaine, for some time before his fatal crash in Detroit."

"If you want that substantiated, you'll have to go elsewhere. Chuck didn't die an admirable man, but he'd had his moments. I remember them."

Unsatisfied, Dylan stopped the recorder. It was a non-denial at best. He had substantiated through others who'd refused to go on record that Chuck Rockwell had developed a dangerous dependence on drugs. But he'd been clean during the last race. The autopsy had determined that. In any case, that was only one area. There were others.

The next tape was marked Brewer. Lori Brewer was the sister of the man who had been Rockwell's backer during his last year. The divorced former model was by her own admission a woman who liked men who took risks. Rockwell's wife hadn't been in the stands during his final race. But his mistress had.

Dylan put in the tape and pushed the play button.

"…the most exciting, dynamic man I've ever known."

Lori's voice had the low-key sensuality of the South. "Chuck Rockwell was a star, fast and hot. He knew his own worth. I admire that in a man."

"Ms. Brewer, for nearly a year you'd been Rockwell's constant companion."

"Lover," she corrected. "I'm not ashamed of it. Chuck was as devastating a lover as he was a driver. He did nothing by half measures." She gave a low, warm-sugar laugh. "Neither do I."

"Did it bother you that he was married?"

"No. I was there, she wasn't. Look, what kind of a marriage is it when people only see each other three or four times a year?"

"Legal."

He remembered she'd taken that good-naturedly enough, her only response a shrug. "Chuck was planning to divorce her anyway. The problem was that she had a stranglehold on his bank account. The lawyers were negotiating a settlement."

Dylan turned off the tape with a muttered oath. Not once during any of his conversations with Abby had she mentioned divorce. There was always the possibility that Rockwell had lied to Lori Brewer. But then, Dylan didn't believe the very sharp Ms. Brewer would have been duped for long. If divorce proceedings had been underway, Abby was doing her best to cover it.

Dylan hadn't pushed the point yet, nor had he brought up Lori Brewer. He was aware that once he did she would probably look at him as the enemy. Whatever he got out of her after that point would have to be pried out. So he'd wait. What he wanted from Abby had to be won through patience.

He pushed aside tapes of other drivers, mechanics, other women, and chose the one marked Abby. It didn't occur to him that out of all the tapes he had, hers was the only one not marked with just a last name. He'd stopped thinking of her as Mrs. Rockwell. The tape was from this morning, when he'd cornered her in the living room. She'd been folding laundry, and it had occurred to him that he hadn't seen anyone do that quiet, time-consuming little chore in more years than he could count. There'd been an old fifties record on the stereo, and the doo-wops and the sha-la-las had poured out as she'd sorted socks.

He remembered how she'd looked. Her hair had been pulled back in a ponytail so that her cheekbones stood out with subtle elegance. The collar of a flannel shirt had poked out of the neck of an oversize sweatshirt, leaving the curve and line of her body a mystery. She'd worn thick socks and no shoes. The fire had been crackling behind her, flames curling greedily around fresh logs. She'd looked so content and at peace with herself that for a moment he hadn't wanted to disturb her. But he'd had a job to do. Just as he had one to do now. Dylan pushed the play button again.

"Did racing put a strain on your marriage?"

"You should remember, Chuck was a driver when I married him." Her voice on the tape sounded calm and solid after Lori Brewer's honey-laced one, "Racing was part of my marriage."

"Then you enjoyed watching him race?"

There had been a lengthy pause as she'd given herself time to find the right words. "In some ways I think Chuck was at his best behind the wheel, on the track. He was exciting, almost eerily competent. Confident," she added, looking beyond Dylan into her own past. "So confident in himself, in his abilities, that it never occurred to me he would lose the race, much less lose control."

"But after the first eight or nine months you stopped traveling with your husband."

"I was pregnant with Ben." She'd smiled a little as she'd pulled a small, worn sweater out of the basket. "It became difficult for me to jump from city to city, race to race. Chuck was—" And there it was, Dylan noted, that slight variance in tone. "He was very understanding. It wasn't too long after that that we bought this place. A home base. Chuck and I agreed that Ben, then Chris, needed this kind of stability."

"It's hard to picture a man with Chuck Rockwell's image settling down in a place like this. But then, he didn't settle, did he?"

She had very carefully folded a bright red sweatshirt. "Chuck needed a home port, like anyone else. But he also needed to race. We combined the two."

Evasions, Dylan thought as he stopped the tape. Half-truths and outright lies. What game was she playing? And why? He knew her well enough now to be certain she wasn't stupid. She would have known of her husband's infidelities, and most particularly of his relationship with Lori Brewer. Protecting him? It hardly seemed feasible that she would protect a man who'd cheated on her, and one who'd cheated blatantly, in public, without a semblance of discretion.

Was she, had she been, the kind of woman content to stay in the background and keep the home fires burning? Or was she, had she been, a woman with her eye on the main chance?

And what kind of man had Rockwell been? Had he been the egotistical driver, the generous lover or the understanding husband and father? Dylan found it hard to believe any man could be all three. Abby was the only one who could give him the answers he needed.

Dragging a hand through his hair, he pushed away from the desk. He wanted to get something down on paper. Once he did, he might begin to put it all in some sort of perspective. Dylan looked at his typewriter and the tapes. Coffee, he decided. It was going to be a long night.

There was a low light burning in the hall. Automatically he glanced across the corridor to where Abby slept Her door was partially open, and the room was dark. He had an urge to cross over and push the door open a little wider so he could see her in the light from the hall.

What did he care for her privacy? He poked and scraped at her privacy whenever he questioned her. She'd cashed a check that gave him permission to.

No, he didn't give a damn for her privacy. But his own self-preservation was a different matter. If he looked, he'd want to touch. If he touched, he might not be able to pull back. So he turned from her room and started down the stairs, alone.

The fire in the living room was burning low and well. He'd watched Abby bank it one night and had been forced to admit that she did a better job of it than he would have. He left it alone and walked down the hall to the kitchen.

She was sitting at the bar in the dark. The only light came from the kitchen fire and the half-moon outside. She had her elbows on either side of a cup, her chin propped by both hands. He thought she looked unbearably lonely.

"Abby?"

She jumped. It might have been funny if he hadn't seen just how white her face was before she focused on him.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to scare you."

"I didn't hear you come down. Is anything wrong?"

"I wanted coffee." But instead of going to the stove, he went to her. "I thought you were in bed."

"Couldn't sleep." She smiled a little and didn't, as he'd expected, fuss with her hair or the lapels of her robe. "The water's probably still hot. I just made tea."

He slid onto the stool beside her. "Problem?"

"Guilt."

His reporter's instincts hummed, at war with an unexpected desire to put his arm around her and offer comfort. "About what?"

"I keep seeing the tears welling up in Chris's eyes when I sent him to bed without letting him watch his favorite show."

He didn't know whether to laugh at himself or her. "Odds are he'll recover."

"The plate wasn't that important." She lifted her tea, then set it down without drinking. "I never use them. They're ugly."

"Uh-huh. Maybe they should take a place setting or two out to the barn for the horses."

She opened her mouth, then laughed. This time, when she picked up her tea, she drank. It soothed a throat that was dry and a little achy. "I wouldn't go quite that far. Janice gave them to Chuck. To Chuck and me," she corrected, a little too quickly. "They're Wedgwood."

"And should be treated with due respect," he said. He hadn't missed her slip. "So what's the problem?"

"I hate to lose my temper."

"Did you? You never raised your voice."

"You don't have to yell to lose your temper." She looked out the window again and wished fleetingly that it wasn't so cold. If it were spring she could go out, sit on the porch and watch the sky. "It was only a plate, after all."

"And it was only a television show."

With a sigh, she settled against the back of the stool. "You think I'm being foolish."

"I suppose you're being a mother. I don't have much experience there."

"It's just so hard when you're the only one to make the rules and the decisions… and the mistakes." She combed a hand through her hair in an unconscious gesture that had it settling beautifully around her face. "Sometimes, late at night like this, I worry that I'm too hard on them. That I expect too much from them. They're just little boys. Now I've sent them off to bed, Chris sniffling and Ben sulking, and—"

Dylan interrupted her. "Maybe you're too hard on their mother." She stopped, stared at him, then looked at her tea again.

"I'm responsible."

And that was that, he could hear it in her tone. He started to drop it, to leave her to her own unhappiness. But whatever he thought of her, whatever he didn't think of her, he knew she was devoted to her children. "Look, I don't know a lot about kids, but I'd say those two are pretty normal and well adjusted. Maybe you should congratulate yourself instead of dragging out the sackcloth."

"I'm not doing that."

"Sure you are. You'll have the ashes out any minute."

She waited for the annoyance to come, but it didn't. Instead, she felt the guilt fade. "Thanks." At ease now, Abby warmed her hands on her cup. "I guess it helps to have a little moral support from time to time."

"No problem. I hate to see a woman sulking in her tea."

She laughed, but he couldn't be sure if it was at herself or at him. "I never sulk, but I'm a real champ at guilt. There were times when Ben was going through his terrible twos when I'd call my mother just to hear her tell me he probably wasn't going to be a homicidal maniac."

"I'd have thought you'd talk to your husband about it."