Lacy Eye (22 page)

When it was clear that he was finished, Joe forked some turkey onto his plate and said, “Rud, about this nickname you have for Dawn.
Kitten
. Don't you think that's a little—I don't know. What would you call it, Hanna? Precious?”

I hesitated, not appreciating his having put me on the spot. “It doesn't matter what
I
think, does it? As long as Dawn likes it, it's fine with me.” I should have just said my real opinion—that it sounded demeaning and ridiculously out of date. But I hadn't allowed myself to feel convinced, yet, that Joe was right about Rud, and for all I knew, he'd end up in the family. I didn't want to alienate him.

“It just seems a little reductive,” Joe said. “I mean, it's not very personal, the way her name would be, for instance.”

“Daddy, you've got it wrong. It's
very
personal,” Dawn said. “Don't you remember how we met to begin with?” She put her hand on Rud's arm; he hadn't been looking, and I tried not to notice that when she touched him, he twitched as if to shake her hand away. “When I brought my kitten into the vet?”

“It's just something I thought would be cute, Mr. Schutt,” Rud said. “A term of endearment. And she seems to like it. But if you don't, then by all means I'll stop.” He smeared a wad of butter onto a roll and took a bite. “Mrs. Schutt, this food is delicious. I may embarrass myself with my appetite here today.”

“Embarrass away,” I told him, feeling idiotic because it was such a dumb thing to say.

We ate in silence, except for the sound of silverware and chewing. “Everything's awesome, Mommy,” Dawn said finally. After I brought the pie out, Dawn cut dessert short to announce that the football game was on. I knew she had no idea who was playing, but she made a point of saying how much Rud loved football, and loved to watch it on Thanksgiving, so we all took our plates into the living room and turned on the set, and watched two teams we couldn't have cared less about. Rud didn't seem all that interested, either, but he had no choice but to express a high measure of enthusiasm because Dawn had made such a big deal. I took Abby out for another walk, and when I returned, everyone was asleep in the same spots I'd left them. I cleaned up the kitchen, and by then it was dark. The rest of the night we passed watching whatever we could find on TV, because no one seemed to have the energy to do anything else.

Before Dawn headed upstairs to bed, I asked her if she wanted to go shopping with me the next day. I'd never been one of those Black Friday shoppers who get up before dawn and join the lines in front of the mall waiting for it to open, but I wanted some time with her alone and I figured Rud wouldn't want to come along on a women's shopping trip, especially in all those crowds. I was right; when Dawn asked him if he'd like to come, he said, “No, you guys go, do your lady thing. I'll hold down the fort at home.” When he used the word
home
about our house, I saw Joe raise his eyebrows, and for a moment I thought he'd change the plan he told us he had for the morning, which was to go into the office to finish up some loose ends on the Sedgwick case. But he didn't, and we all agreed to go our separate ways in the morning and meet up again at lunchtime. Rud told us he would sleep in, and might not even be up when we all returned.

Upstairs, Dawn and Rud entered her room together and closed the door. Joe had already gone ahead to bed, and I debated telling him they were sharing the room, but figured that neither of us had the heart for a big scene, especially when we'd decided that we just wanted to get through the visit and say good-bye.

Joe left the house in the morning before Dawn and me. She and I had breakfast and then hit the mall, but it was more chaotic than either of us could stand, so after making a few purchases that had us waiting in line forever, we headed home.

It wasn't even eleven o'clock yet, and I expected that Rud would, as he'd predicted, still be in bed. But we found him asleep in the family room, the movie channel playing in the background. When he heard us entering, he woke up. I would have expected him to seem sheepish, having been discovered slack-jawed and almost drooling in front of the TV by his girlfriend and her mother, but instead he appeared irritated that we had interrupted his nap. At least, that was my first impression of his attitude. But then he adjusted quickly, jumping up to grab the packages Dawn and I carried, saying he hadn't realized he was so tired.

Joe came home within the half hour, carrying his briefcase and a stack of folders directly into his office on the first floor. That was when he discovered that we had been robbed.

Something looked wrong about the cabinet in his study, he told me later, and opening it, he saw that my expensive binoculars were gone. Immediately he checked the closet, where he kept his grandfather's telescope, but that shelf was empty as well. With a sick feeling in my throat, I rushed up to the bedroom to find that my mother's ring was missing from my jewelry box. The crystal obelisk Joe had received as an award at the previous year's accounting banquet had been taken, too.

Of course, the first person we turned to was Rud. Had he not noticed anything? Wouldn't he have heard someone come into the house? Wouldn't Abby have barked if someone tried? That was when he put on the embarrassed expression I'd expected earlier, and told us he was a hard sleeper: “My mother used to say they could test bombs in my bedroom without waking me up.” I thought I saw Dawn startle and almost say something, but she seemed to think better of it and tightened her lips.

We called the Everton police and they sent over Kenneth Thornburgh, who took down a list of the missing items and listened as Joe described the cabinet doors in his office being slightly awry, which was what had tipped him off that someone had opened them. “But you're saying the doors were closed when you came in here, right?” the detective said. We didn't know what he was getting at until he added, “Why would a thief come in to steal things, then bother to close the doors behind him? If it was just a grab-and-run?” This made sense, and I could see that Joe thought so, too. Dawn had left us and gone into the bathroom—hiding from the conflict, most likely—but Rud was still standing behind us, his hands thrust deep in his jeans pockets as he looked down somberly at the floor. “Can I talk to you two for a minute?” Thornburgh said, nodding at Joe and me. Rud mumbled something that sounded like “Sure, sure” and backed out of the room, though I sensed reluctance in his movement. Thornburgh shut the door.

“How well do you know your daughter's boyfriend?” he asked, and though Joe understood immediately what he was implying, it took me longer.

“Not well,” I admitted. “But she does, of course. They came for Thanksgiving. Why?”

Joe moved closer to me, as if he thought I might need to lean against him when I finally understood what he and the detective had already grasped. “He was the only one here, Hanna.” In his face I saw relief, which at first I interpreted as a kind of gloating that his growing suspicions about Rud had been confirmed. It would take me a while to realize that he was relieved because if we knew who the thief was, we would likely recover what we had lost.

“But—why?” I looked from one man to the other. When neither of them could answer me, I said, “Isn't it possible it happened the way he said—that somebody came in and robbed us while he was asleep by the TV?”

“It's very unlikely.” Thornburgh spoke in a low voice, and it occurred to me that he thought Rud might be listening outside the door. “There haven't been any reports of burglaries in this neighborhood, or the whole town lately, for that matter.” He nodded in the direction of the hallway. “Do you know anything about his finances?”

We didn't. We knew only that he worked as a vet's assistant—a job that, I assumed, didn't pay very well. It hadn't occurred to me to wonder about how he supported himself. But even if I had wondered, I would have thought only that since he came from a successful family, his parents probably helped him out if he needed it.

“I'll want to talk to him,” the detective said, and we followed him back into the hall. Dawn had come out of the bathroom and was standing behind Rud, biting the tip of her thumb into bloodlessness. It was one of her old habits I associated with her most anxious moments, and I thought she'd gotten rid of it in college—when she met Rud—so I winced when I saw her doing it again.

Thornburgh asked Rud to accompany him downstairs and into Joe's study, so they would be able to speak privately. Dawn asked if she could be there, too, but Rud turned and kissed her forehead and said, “Don't worry, Kitten—I've got nothing to hide.” Though I tried to resist them, the words
con man
flashed through my mind.

While they sequestered themselves in the separate room, I made sandwiches from the leftover turkey. When I put plates down in front of Joe and Dawn, she said, “How can you guys even think about eating?” Joe had already taken a bite, and I could see that he considered feeling chagrined and decided against it.

“Maybe it's all for the best in the long run,” he told her. “If this guy really is bad news, you want to know it sooner rather than later.”

“He didn't
steal those things. Honestly, Daddy, how can you think that?” She pushed her plate away, and nobody spoke for the next several minutes until we heard Rud and Thornburgh come out of the office.

The detective said quietly to Joe and me, “Apparently, there's some camera equipment missing, too. Mr. Petty said his camera was stolen along with all your property.” His tone implied to me that he did not believe what Rud had told him, but Dawn didn't seem to notice.

“I don't remember seeing any camera,” Joe said, as we watched Rud walk over to Dawn and put his hands on her shoulders from behind. She lifted a hand to pat his in a gesture of support, though I recognized confusion in her face.

“Really, Mr. Schutt? You didn't see me yesterday after dinner, taking pictures of the bird feeder out there?” Rud pointed to the yard, where behind the garden—which was essentially shut down for the winter—we kept suet and sunflower seeds in a contraption designed to let the birds get at the food while keeping squirrels out. “There was that gorgeous cardinal, don't you remember? And what's that other kind you said, Mrs. S.—nuthatches? There was a whole family of them.” Same smile on his face, same charm in his voice as during the rehearsal dinner before Iris's wedding, when I fell for it all. Only this time, I was aware of the duplicity behind it. There had been no camera, no photographing of birds in the backyard. After dinner there was the football game and then a long evening of TV. I was the only one who had gone outside, to walk the dog. Rud had not left the house at all.

“That never happened.” Joe was shaking his head, looking at Rud with a smile on his own face I'm sure he didn't even realize was there. Knowing my husband as I did, I could tell that as angry as he must be about Rud having robbed us, he also felt fascinated by the arrogance it took for him to lie about it.

“I set the camera right down there on top of the hutch,” Rud continued, pointing to where we stored the good tableware in the dining room. “And now it's gone. They must have gotten that, too.”

They
. The fictitious burglars who, having noticed someone sleeping in front of a blaring TV, and probably a dog as well, still chose to enter the house in broad daylight and scope it out for valuables before removing those items and restoring order behind them. Of course it made no sense, and the fact that Rud was lying about the camera made me realize that he
had
to be the actual culprit.

Rud, still holding Dawn's shoulders, leaned down to her and said, “I know
you
remember, Kitten. You said you couldn't remember seeing anything so red as that little birdie.”

I watched my daughter freeze for a moment under his hands—just a moment; no one but a mother would have caught it—​b
efore
she turned her face up to him, willing her features to brighten along the way.

“Of course I remember,” she agreed, but she could not look at Joe and me as she added, “Maybe you guys missed it when you were watching football.”

“We were
all
watching football,” Joe said. He spoke in his quietest voice, and I could see Dawn shrink, at hearing it.

It was clear that Detective Thornburgh understood what was going on. When he motioned for Joe and me to accompany him to the door, he told us as much. “But with him reporting himself a victim, too, and no other evidence, there's not much we can do but file a report,” he said.

“You can't search his car?” Joe asked, as we stepped into the driveway and remembered that Rud and Dawn had driven up in her Nova. “I mean, our daughter's car?” Though it had started to snow, Emmett Furth was riding his motorbike down the street wearing only a tee-shirt and jeans. When he saw the uniformed officer outside our house, he gave Thornburgh the finger.

“Maybe
he
did it,” I said, forgetting for a moment that all the evidence pointed to Rud.

“Oh, we're familiar with Emmett,” the detective said. “But he's pretty small time. And he's smart enough not to rip off the people next door.” Joe and I looked at each other, deciding between us not to mention the burning of the tree house. Thornburgh turned to Joe. “Do you own the Nova?”

Joe pursed his lips, shook his head. “No. It's in her name.”

“Then she'd have to consent to it.”

I would have tried to stop him, but Joe had turned back toward the house before I could do so. “Dawn! Would you come out here a minute, please?”

In a moment she appeared, trailing Rud behind her with her hand locked in his. “What now?” Something had changed in her expression even in the short time since we'd been in the house with them. Her features were hardened against Joe and me, as if Rud had whispered a promise she'd been waiting to hear.