The Question of the Unfamiliar Husband (22 page)

Twenty-seven

“How did you choose
this restaurant?” Hazel Montrose asked.

We were seated in a booth at Applebee's on Centennial Avenue in Piscataway, not far from the supermarket, the bagel store, and the nail salon. The waiter, a man in his early twenties (probably a student at nearby Rutgers University) who told us his name was Tyler and he would be taking care of us tonight—a rather bizarre declaration I chose not to question—had taken our dinner orders and retreated to the kitchen.

“It is part of a chain, so the food is predictably of the same quality at every location,” I explained. “The menu can be found online before leaving one's home, so there will be no surprises other than the daily specials, which can be avoided. For me, that makes a great difference.”

Hazel, who was wearing a blue top with a white skirt, nodded understandingly. I had not told her about my Asperger's Syndrome, since I believe the word
syndrome
tends to lead people to the incorrect assumption that I am in some way ill or damaged. I am not. My personality has features that do not conform to the accepted definition of “normal,” and enough people are different in this way that it has acquired a label. So Hazel's nod was in all likelihood an acknowledgement that she had noticed some “quirks.”

“There is a certain comfort in predictability,” she said. “You can concentrate your thinking in other directions.”

I had not mentioned the death of Cynthia Maholm. When I had told Ms. Washburn that I intended to avoid the topic unless Hazel brought it up, she'd smiled and suggested it was because I didn't want to spoil the occasion. I'd responded that I simply wanted to determine if Hazel had already heard the news, and Ms. Washburn smiled and said, “Of course.” I had not extended that part of the conversation.

When I had told Mother of my intention to go to dinner with Hazel, her first question was a practical one: “How will you get there?” But Hazel had already offered to drive, and she had picked me up at Questions Answered, since she had already visited the office and knew its location.

Then my mother had asked me if this was a social dinner or one related to my business, and I had been unable to answer that question completely. “It's business,” I finally decided, “but in the guise of a social occasion.”

Mother's voice took on a slightly scolding quality. “Are you leading that girl on, Samuel?”

I was not sure what that expression meant. I was certainly not leading Hazel anywhere physically, as she was driving. “Leading her on where?” I asked.

Mother's tone softened a bit, as if often does when she needs to explain an idiom to me. She sometimes forgets that I take such expressions literally on my first exposure to them. “It means to deceive someone by making them believe you have a romantic interest in them, when your real intentions are … not in that area.”

That was simply absurd. “I am not ‘leading on' Hazel Montrose,” I said through the phone. I was in the office and Mother was at home, probably in the kitchen because she insists the reception on
the wall phone there is the clearest in the house, even though the signal must logically be the same to each extension. “I am going to dinner with her to ask her about Oliver Lewis and Terry Lambroux.”

“You usually don't take people to dinner just to ask them questions,” Mother pointed out. “You just ask the questions.”

“It is meant to relax Hazel so she will answer more honestly,” I explained.

“You're not going to ply her with alcohol,” Mother admonished. Then she caught herself as my mind raced. “That means offer her drinks until she loses some control over her decisions and her behavior.”

“Did Oliver Lewis ply you with alcohol?” I asked Hazel as Tyler retreated to the bar.

She laughed quickly, apparently taken by surprise. “You get right to it, don't you, Samuel?”

“I am merely asking because some of Mr. Lewis's other ex-wives have suggested that he might have induced them to marry him by encouraging them to drink more than they would normally have on their own, or possibly with cocktails laced with drugs.” The late Cynthia Maholm had suggested that, as had Rachel Stanhope.

“No, Samuel. As far as I know, I was completely sober and consenting when I married Ollie. Just as I was when I divorced him.” At that moment Tyler returned with a glass of water for me (no lemon) and a martini for Hazel. He retreated immediately, saying our dinners would be out “real soon.”

“I am glad to hear it,” I said once Tyler was gone. “I'd hate to think you had been married to a man you didn't care to marry.”

“No, I definitely wanted to be married to Ollie when we met,” Hazel said after a sip of her martini, which she had described as “dry.” The concept of a dry liquid is still one I have difficulty understanding. I did comprehend the existence of dry cleaning fluid
because I had once researched a question regarding the operation of a process called Martinizing.

“In the beginning, Ollie made me feel like a princess, something I never thought I would like, but it was fantastic. His attention was completely and totally on me. I felt pampered and important and loved.”

“But you divorced him,” I pointed out. I had an odd feeling of resentment toward Oliver Lewis, a man I had met only once. I could not explain it.

“Sure. After he married me, I became an accessory. He introduced me to his business contacts to show off that he was married, I guess. Some of them were real family values guys who wouldn't have been crazy about two unmarried people living together. So Ollie wanted to get married fast. I only knew him a couple of months before we were at the justice of the peace in Darien, Connecticut, vowing all sorts of stuff I never really thought about.” She shook her head in seeming disbelief at her own naiveté, then took a larger sip of her drink.

“Is that why he married all the others?” I asked. I was attempting to find a conversational path toward Terry Lambroux and the real Sheila McInerney, but I had to do so gently. Scaring off Hazel Montrose would be a serious setback for the research on Detective Dickinson's question.

Hazel shrugged. “I can't tell you why he married anybody else,” she said. “I can't even really tell you why he married me.” Another sip. It seemed there would be no reason for me to ply Hazel with alcohol; she was doing it herself.

“Well, what about Sheila McInerney? Did you meet her?”

Hazel shook her head. “I wasn't really friendly with any of the others. I know Jenny LeBlanc likes to pretend there's this club of the five of us, but I didn't really keep up with any of them. Maybe they have meetings or something, but I've never gone.” She looked up and caught Tyler's eye, pointed at her empty martini glass, and nodded when he acknowledged her order.

“So you are not a member of WOOL?”

Hazel sputtered a laugh that was part amusement, part surprise, and part disgust. “No,” she said firmly. “There's no monthly newsletter or anything, you know. And it isn't my nature to wallow in the past like that. I married Ollie, I divorced Ollie. Once the papers were signed, it was over. You move on.”

“What kind of settlement was included in your divorce?” I asked.

Hazel blinked. “I beg your pardon?”

I worried now that I had violated some social protocol. “I'm sorry,” I said. “Was that an inappropriate question?”

“Samuel, it's considered rude to ask people about their finances, so yes, that was inappropriate.”

“My apologies.” How could I get the information if a direct question was not considered allowable? “I merely believed that you might have become wealthy if you now own part of OLimited.” This was calculated to estimate Hazel's divorce agreement along with the viability of Oliver Lewis's business.

She shook her head. “I'm not rich. I don't think anybody got rich off Oliver Lewis.” She looked up as Tyler brought her second martini to the table. “Oh thank you,” she said. She took a sip and looked at me. “Can we talk about something else?”

I scanned my mind for alternative topics of conversation. “Did you know that the original title of ‘Yesterday' was ‘Scrambled Eggs?'” I asked. I consider that fact to be common knowledge, so it gives me information when other people are unaware of it.

Unfortunately, I did not get a response because a young woman dressed in the same style as Tyler appeared from the kitchen carrying a tray with our dinners on top of it. She opened a collapsible stand for it, put the tray down, and placed our orders in front of us. She did not tell us her name, nor did she announce that she would be taking care of us today.

Hazel drank more from her martini before beginning to eat her dinner. I examined mine, determined that it was slightly undercooked, and beckoned to the young woman. I told her of my concern and she apologized (although I doubted the problem was at all her fault) and removed the plate, saying she would have an appropriate one back to me as soon as possible.

I noticed a closed, observant look on Hazel's face when I re
turned my attention to her. “You're very particular about some things,” she said. “A lot of men would have let that go.”

It was difficult to know what to say; I did not want to bring up the subject of an autism spectrum disorder at this moment. “There are some issues that are difficult for me to overlook,” I said. “Food is one of them.” That was true.

She nodded. “I understand. I can't leave the house unless I'm wearing earrings.” I did not see the relevance of that statement, but apparently Hazel was trying to draw an analogy between my food preferences and her insistence on decorating her earlobes. It was probably best not to dwell on that.

The young woman returned with my order, and it was now satisfactorily prepared. I thanked her and she apologized again, although I still could not understand the need. There was an interval during which the conversation lagged as both Hazel and I satisfied our appetites. She was, I noticed, still paying a good deal of attention to the second martini. If she decided to order a third, I might consider calling Mike for a ride home for both of us if I could find a public phone; they are very difficult to locate in the age of the cellular telephone.

“The thing is,” Hazel said suddenly, “Oliver was not a real businessman.” She slurred the
s
in
business
slightly. “He was trying to get money from old people without giving them anything.”

Perhaps there was an advantage to this idea of plying with alcohol. “How did it work?” I asked her, trying to keep my voice impassive, which is the way some people believe I sound all the time.

“It was simple,” Hazel said after another sip. “Ollie would get names of people whose spouses had just died. They had to be over seventy for him to contact them. Then he'd call up and ask about their insurance. He'd convince them traditional life insurance wasn't worth the money for someone of their age living alone. And he said the way to really provide for your children and grandchildren when you go is to make these really smart investments that his company OLimited would find for them.”

“It is not unusual for people to invest in mutual funds and corporate interests,” I said. “How did Mr. Lewis make money that way, more than any other investment counselor would do?”

Hazel pointed at me with her knife, which was momentarily alarming. “That's the thing: there never were any investments. Ollie would get these people to sign contracts that basically said they were giving him all their money to do with as he pleased. It said
if
he wanted to invest the money, he could, but in any event, it was in his name. So he invested in Ollie Lewis, that's what he invested in.”

“So you must have benefited, as his wife and then ex-wife, from the seemingly illegal and certainly misleading business he was conducting,” I suggested.

Hazel took a bite and chewed it while she spoke, which made me avert my gaze to my own food. It now seemed less appetizing than before I'd seen Hazel chewing.

“I never saw a dime of it,” she said. She took another sip; the glass was almost empty again. “The fact is, Ollie never really made much on the scheme. He underestimated the old people. Most of them aren't that stupid—they read the contract and threw him out on his ear. It was only a few that bought in on this scheme, and they didn't have all that much for him to glom onto, so he ended up with very little.”

I ignored the use of the word
glom
, which does not actually exist in the English language, and pressed on while the martinis were still loosening Hazel's mind and lowering her verbal resistance.

“But he supposedly had millions. Was that his only source of income?”

Hazel's lips vibrated and she made a sound I've heard referred to as a “raspberry,” despite it having no relationship to the fruit. “No,” she said. “Ollie always had a scheme. He just never had a good one.”

“What about Sheila McInerney and Terry Lambroux?” I was playing a hunch, which is not my habit. I do not approve of guesswork, but this question had left me with little of substance to use, so I provided a stimulus and waited for the response.

“I told you, there is no Terry Lambroux,” Hazel said. “I don't know anything about Sheila.”

She was, I believe, about to add something to her statement when some movement outside the window next to our booth distracted her. “What's that?” she said, and her shoulders seemed to tense.

“I did not see anything unusual,” I said.

“They've found me!” Hazel reached for her purse, which was on the seat next to her. “We have to go!”

“I don't understand,” I told her, trying to hold her gaze and wondering what I should do about paying Tyler for the dinner, or whether Hazel and I should divide the check by two and pay half each. The fact was, Tyler had not yet given us the check, so for the moment the point was moot. “Who has found you, and why are you so upset? We have not finished—”