The Question of the Unfamiliar Husband (23 page)

Hazel stood up, seemingly sober after one second. Her eyes were focused and intent on the restaurant entrance, where a young woman named Tasha (according to her nametag) had opened the
door and greeted us when we'd arrived. “There's no time for it now, Samuel. We have to get out of here!”

I gestured toward Tyler, who had no doubt seen Hazel stand and was already approaching. He handed me the check and I paid it, adding a twenty percent tip because servers have a very difficult job. I would settle with Hazel about her half later, I decided, since she seemed very agitated about leaving immediately and was already walking toward the door.

A glance toward the table as I hurried after her revealed that her martini glass was now empty.

I did consider calling Mike, but there was no public telephone nearby and Hazel was a few strides ahead of me and obviously had no intention of stopping to wait for a taxicab. I noticed that the white skirt she was wearing was very attractive on her, but that did not seem important at the moment. Perhaps I should let her drive away and then find a way to get in touch with Mike or Ms. Washburn or Mother.

“Come
on
,” Hazel insisted, getting into the driver's seat of her car. I increased my speed to show her I was serious about her insistence that we were in some sort of danger, but I stopped at the driver's side window, which Hazel opened.

“Would you like me to drive?” I asked. “I do have a valid driver's license.” I felt it was best not to mention that she had been drinking alcohol and might be violating New Jersey state law by operating a motor vehicle.

“Get in!” she shouted, not ceding the controls of the car.

It was a difficult decision, but with no other means of transportation home, I sat in the passenger seat and immediately fastened my shoulder harness.

Hazel engaged the car's engine and backed out of the parking space at an alarming rate. I'm not sure I didn't let out a yelp involuntarily. She headed for the exit very quickly.

“I believe you are exceeding the speed limit,” I noted.

“You ain't seen nothin' yet,” she answered. It took me a moment to untangle the double negative, but when I did, I felt my hand on my nose.

The car spun out of the parking lot and onto Centennial Avenue, but without the tires squealing and spinning as they often do during chase scenes on television and in films. I could see the speedometer from the passenger seat—it lit up in large numbers on the dashboard—and the message it gave was extremely unsettling.

I had to choke out words. I could feel my head shaking. “Why are we going so fast?” I asked.

Hazel actually took her eyes off the road (at this speed!) and regarded me with a withering look. “To keep them from catching us, of course,” she spat out.

I dared not turn around to see through the rear window, but I could barely force my eyes toward the passenger side mirror, expecting to see the black Ford Escape in hot pursuit. But there was no obvious pursuer behind us. The Escape was not there, and other vehicles were doing their very best to stay out of Hazel's path.

“Who?” I asked when I could speak again. The speedometer had gained eight miles per hour.

“Them!” she shouted, as if that were an adequate answer.

She made a right turn onto Stelton Road, the opposite direction from the Questions Answered office, at a very high speed, and I held my breath for fear the car would turn over on its side and we would be injured or killed. But it did not do that, and Hazel seemed to take it as a signal that she should increase our speed further. I made a choking noise in the back of my throat.

“We have to get away!” Hazel insisted.

I forced my jaw open. “Please let me off here. I will find another ride home.”

“I can't stop! They'll catch us!”

There was no rescue in sight. I would have thought a Piscataway police cruiser would have stopped Hazel's car by now, but there was none behind us. I had only myself to rely upon, and that was not comforting.

My hands were flapping, my brow was coated in sweat, my head was shaking at the neck, and my voice was out of control. I could hear myself vocalizing without making any conversational sounds. It sounded like, “uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuhhhhh … ”

“Cut that out,” Hazel said. “You're helping them find us.”

There was no choice. Ms. Washburn was not here finding a way to refocus my thoughts. I had to do it myself. I closed my eyes, trying to block out the increasing whine of the engine as it accelerated.

“Hazel,” I said, “there is no one chasing us.”

She started as if shocked. “There isn't?” she asked.

“No. I would see them if they were there. And no, there is no one so clever that I wouldn't see them following this car if they were doing so, especially at the speed you are driving. Please. Believe what I am saying, and slow the car down.”

Hazel, eyes wide, looked into her rearview mirror, then the one on the driver's side. She moved spastically, quick, darting movements of her head that made her look oddly like Elsa Lanchester in
The Bride of Frankenstein
, a classic film made in 1935. It also starred Colin Clive, Boris Karloff, and Ernest Thesiger. The film was directed by James Whale and distributed by Universal Pictures.

Mother says I sometimes offer too much information on a topic.

The car began to decelerate as Hazel's face looked less frantic and more worried. “I was so sure,” she murmured as the speedometer showed a speed only slightly higher than the posted limit for this area.

Normally I would be concerned in a vehicle only slightly exceeding the legal limit. Now I felt positively relieved.

“Why did you think someone was following you?” I asked when Hazel appeared to be breathing normally again.

“Someone's been following me for days,” she answered. “Two men in a black—”

“A black Ford Escape?” I asked.

She looked over at me, which caused my right hand to flutter a bit, but then she turned her attention back to the road. “How did you know that?”

“They followed Ms. Washburn and me as well. I believe they work for someone with an interest in Oliver Lewis's business, perhaps Terry Lambroux.” I watched her face for any reaction at the name I'd mentioned, and I got one.

Hazel scoffed waving a hand. “I don't think there's such a person as Terry Lambroux,” she said. “You keep hearing about him, but nobody ever sees him.”

“Terry Lambroux is a man?”

Hazel shrugged. “Far as I know. Everybody always says ‘him' when the name comes up. But I don't think there is such a person.”

That was when I spied the black Ford Escape behind us, which opened a debate in my mind: Tell Hazel and have her drive wildly and dangerously again, or say nothing and risk putting both of us in danger?

Then I remembered the men in the Escape. So I said to Hazel, “Would you pull over at that parking lot, please? The excitement has me feeling a bit light-headed.”

Hazel pulled in her lips, but she did as I asked, and in forty-three seconds we were safely parked in the lot for a Dunkin' Donuts. I told Hazel I wanted to get some air, and let myself out of the car.

The Escape pulled into the lot at the other end and parked, its lights turned off.

I bent over a bit, pretending to be gasping for air. Hazel opened the window on her side and asked if I was all right. I nodded, but said I'd like to walk around a little. She should stay there, I told her, I would be right back.

Still a little stooped, I did not wait for an answer and walked in a somewhat indirect path toward the Escape. At one point I walked to the door of the Dunkin' Donuts, although I did not want to buy a doughnut. I stopped, pretended I had thought of something, and walked away from the door, approaching the Escape.

Once near the Ford, I waved my arm in a greeting and approached the driver in his seat. “Gentlemen,” I said. “We meet again.”

“Hoenig,” the taller man said. “What are you doing here?”

“He was at the Applebee's with Montrose,” the shorter one answered with a slightly annoyed tone. “Don't you ever pay attention?”

“I wonder why you are now following Hazel Montrose if you are, as you said, not interested in the murder of Oliver Lewis,” I said, paying no attention to their bickering. “Could it be that you were not entirely truthful with me?”

That was sarcasm. It did not come to me naturally, but once I grasped the concept, I was able to utilize it almost immediately.

The smaller man exhaled, indicating this was more effort than he had anticipated or desired. “What do you want, Hoenig?” he asked.

“I want to know who asked you to follow Hazel Montrose and why.”

“And why should I tell you anything?”

“Because I will pester you until you do. This way you can avoid the aggravation easily. I have Asperger's Syndrome, sir. Believe me, I can irritate you in ways you have not yet imagined.” I did not exactly know what that meant, but I was willing to bet the man in the Escape didn't know, either.

Clearly, he did not. “All right. There's no harm in it. First of all, there is absolutely no chance I'm going to tell you who hired us. But I was asked to see where Montrose went because someone thinks she might have had something to do with Oliver Lewis being, you know, dead.”

Beyond that, the man in the Escape told me very little. His employer, he said, was interested in what had happened to Oliver Lewis for “business reasons,” and if Hazel was involved in the murder, there was money to be made, he insinuated.

“She was the one of his wives who hated him the most, but she was also the one most closely tied to the scam,” he said.

“What do you know about Terry Lambroux?” I asked. The man looked at me without saying anything. Then before I could ask another question, he had raised the automatic window on his vehicle, engaged the engine, and driven away.

I walked back to Hazel's car, where she was listening to a song I did not recognize on the radio. She turned off the music when I sat back in the passenger seat. “Are you feeling better?” she asked.

“Yes.” I nodded. “Thank you.” I know it is proper to thank someone at a moment like that, but am not sure if one is expressing appreciation for the idea that the other person hopes you are feeling better—which was not stated explicitly—or for simply asking, which seems odd, given that it is an inquiry based on the situation. No one thanks me when I ask questions as part of my research. As with many items of social protocol, it is not logical.

Hazel engaged the car's reverse gear and backed out of the parking space. She stared straight ahead as she pulled out of the parking lot and then onto Stelton Road again.

“So what did the guy in the black Escape tell you?” she asked. She did not look at me to gauge a reaction.

“He said he is employed by someone who believes you to be the most likely suspect in Oliver Lewis's murder,” I responded. There was no sense in lying to Hazel about the conversation. She had already determined that I'd spoken to the man, and I would not have been able to create a believable story that would leave out the pertinent information. Besides, Mother often says it's easier to tell the truth because you don't have to remember the lie.

Hazel seemed unfazed by the information. “He didn't say who?”

“No. He has refused to name his employer on a number of occasions. He also does not respond when I mention Terry Lambroux.”

Hazel shook her head slightly. “I told you, I don't think there is a Terry Lambroux.”

“Someone sued Oliver Lewis for breach of promise,” I pointed out. “Whoever that was used the name Terry—not Terrence or Theresa—Lambroux. Can you explain that?”

“No. But it seems weird to me that nobody's ever seen this person.”

“I agree. But strange circumstances surrounding a person do not necessarily mean there is no such person.”

Hazel seemed to consider that idea. “You must have thought I was crazy when I started driving like that. Does it make you feel better to discover we really were being followed?”

“No.”

She laughed. “I don't blame you. I guess I'm asking whether you still think I'm crazy.”

I took a deep breath; this moment is always awkward for me. “I have Asperger's Syndrome, Hazel,” I said. “I think
everyone
is crazy.”

She laughed harder but did not move to pull the car over, which made me slightly nervous. But she did manage to drive safely and controlled herself after eleven seconds.

“You're probably right,” Hazel said.

She dropped me off at my home three minutes later, but we had not continued our conversation. I opened the car door, and Hazel said, “This was fun, Samuel. We should do it again sometime.”

I thought the idea of going to dinner, driving wildly into the night, and being followed by unsavory characters was hardly something I would care to repeat. So it took me a moment to realize that Hazel meant we might like to see each other on a social basis at some other time.

What do men say at such moments? “Yes. I will make a point to call you.” It was a variation on what I have heard in films and on television.

I walked into the house and called to Mother, who was in the den watching television. She walked into the kitchen, where I was taking a pitcher of water out of the refrigerator (I do not use plastic bottles at home, and have considered renting a water cooler at the office, but it would not be possible to get a cooler of diet soda for Ms. Washburn). Mother wasted no time. “So?” she said.

“I do not believe that dating is necessarily my strongest activity,” I said. “But I have gained some useful information toward answering the questions.”

“Questions?” Mother asked. “Are there more than one?”

I poured some water into a glass and sat down at the table after I returned the pitcher to the refrigerator. I nodded after taking a drink, which felt good. “Of course. There is Detective Dickinson's question about the death of Oliver Lewis, and Cynthia Maholm's question about her husband.”