Collateral Damage
Short story by David Larsen

Rylee Pruett hadn’t been home in more than six years and today was none too soon, but she had nowhere else to go. When she married Chad, his family had seen to it that the wedding took place in Lubbock, certainly not Dos Pesos and definitely hosted by them and not by Clayton and Ida Pruett, Rylee’s father and mother. Not that there was anything wrong with Rylee’s family, other than they were a little rough around the edges, but most everyone in Dos Pesos showed a little wear and tear after years of scrounging out a living in the deserts of West Texas. Life in that part of the country was hard on folks. While the Pruett family eked out a living raising cattle, chickens, a few crops and far too many disappointments, Chad’s family, the Drakes, enjoyed their country club, Mr. Drake’s more than slightly lucrative position in an investment firm, Mrs. Drake’s Junior League activities and Chad’s tennis club achievements as well as his rapidly advancing career under his father’s tutelage.

But the marriage was over. Chad had turned out to be a pill. Rylee should’ve known it when they met at Texas Tech but she was overwhelmed by the BMW he drove and his fancy duds, not to mention his good manners, good looks and that smooth-talking way about him. He was perfect, or so she thought.

And if Chad turned out to be a pill, his parents, Mrs. Drake in particular, turned out to be nothing short of an enema. Rylee was glad to be rid of all of them but she would miss the perks of being a Drake in Lubbock.  

“You were smart to marry Carlos,” said Rylee to Emily. “He’s stable.”

“That’s only because I didn’t go away to some fancy-schmancy college like you did,” said Emily. “Angelo State was just fine with me. And we both knew Carlos at Travis High. I guess I’ve just got Dos Pesos in my blood, like it or not.”

Rylee sipped at her iced tea while she looked around the La Sombra Café, the local eatery she’d spent so much of her life in, before she ventured off to Lubbock and became addicted to Chad’s club, the local steak houses, swimming pools and tennis lessons. What the heck, her husband even had her eating sushi from time to time, something no one in Dos Peso would ever dream of doing. There was nothing close to raw fish on the menu at the La Sombra. Rylee knew or recognized all of the other patrons that afternoon, people she’d known all her life. Still, after Lubbock, they all seemed drab.

Even Emily, her best friend since the second grade, seemed a little hickish, but Emily hadn’t gone all the way to the Panhandle for college and, unlike Rylee, the quiet girl returned home every summer to help her parents out on their struggling ranch. In some ways Rylee admired Emily, but mostly she resented her for thinking that she was somehow better for marrying a local boy and immediately going about giving birth to two children. She and Chad, luckily, had no children. And with Chad’s mother’s untimely death and all of the mystery surrounding it, it was for the better.

“Emily, I never got to apologize for not having you as my maid of honor, but with my wedding in Lubbock I wasn’t sure you could do it.” Rylee bit at her lip. “And you don’t know the Drakes. They could be such snobs. Especially Mrs. Drake. Mr. Drake wasn’t so bad but she was hell on wheels in so many ways.”

“Oh, you had your new friends up there at Tech. None of us thought anything about it. At least your parents got to go up to the wedding. Your mother told me all about it. She showed me pictures.”

“They treated my parents shabbily that weekend,” said Rylee. “And I just stood by and watched it happen.”

“Well, your mother-in-law got hers. What was it?”

Rylee grinned. “They found her in her Lexus, in the garage, the engine running.” She shrugged. “It wasn’t an accident.”

“That’s horrible,” said Emily. “She killed herself?”

“That’s what the police concluded.” Rylee stared out the window at a semi passing by on State Highway 1129. “Unfortunately, I was the last person to see her alive.” She sighed. “It’s tragic, but these things happen.”

“Holy moly. Nothing like that happens in Dos Pesos.” Emily, wide-eyed sat up in her seat in the booth. “And you were the last one to see her alive?”

“Chad and I were already having problems so she and I had lunch at the country club. She wanted to buy me off. She never liked the idea of her precious boy marrying someone from the sticks in the first place.”

Rylee smelled something disagreeable from the kitchen. Definitely not sushi. “After I dropped her off at her house, she did it. And she did it right. Boy, did she ever. From the time I left her to the time they found her she taped the outside of the garage door air tight, then she taped the door between the house and the garage, then she got in the car and did it.”

“Yuck.” Emily shook her head. “Did the police talk to you?”

“Well, of course. But what could I say? I told them that we’d had lunch and that I drove her home. I didn’t mention our dispute over her Wonder Boy son.” She paused. “None of the waiters mentioned anything either.” She took a deep breath. “It’s not like I was sorry that she did it.”

“Geez, Rylee. Didn’t anyone see her taping her garage shut? A neighbor? Someone?”

“Not in that neighborhood,” said Rylee. “The houses are huge and so spread out no one knows anyone else. A bunch of snobs. Like Mrs. Drake.”

“Did she leave a note?”

“Nope. And, of course, darling Chad blamed me. I should’ve noticed something, or so he thought.” Rylee took a deep breath. “Then at the funeral everyone was wailing and bawling like all get out and Chad was furious that I just stood there like a bump on a log. He had the nerve to tell me I was smirking. Can you believe that? That I was smirking at his mother’s funeral? The preacher told everyone what a kind and generous woman she was. Bullshit. He didn’t know her like I did.”

“Didn’t you feel bad?”

“Just between you and me, no, not really. At that point all I felt was that the shit was about to hit the fan. But it didn’t. The police were satisfied that she did herself in, and that was that. Oh, they asked me questions, but apparently what I told them satisfied them. I had nothing to hide.” Rylee nodded to the waitress for a refill of her iced tea. “You make it sound like you think I was involved.”

“No, no. It just seems so strange.”

“It was strange.” Rylee blinked. “And even though the police didn’t suspect anything, Chad became even worse. He wanted to know what we talked about that day. He wouldn’t take me with him to the club or out to eat. He became obsessed. If things were bad before, they became worse after his precious mother died. If I had done it, it would have been to humiliate him. Not to get her. But, of course, I didn’t do it. But you know Emily, it was fun watching him suffer the embarrassment of having a mother who’d killed herself. It sounds fiendish, but that’s how I felt.”

“Then what?”

“Then things got worse until he divorced me,” said Rylee. “But believe you me I took him for all I could get. Now Mr. Perfect isn’t so perfect anymore. He’s got a mother who killed herself and a costly divorce behind him. Or, even worse, a wife who killed his mother and got away with it. Can you believe it? During the divorce he accused me of all sorts of things. Having an affair with someone at his la di dah tennis club, being a gold digger, everything short of killing his mother.”

“Did you? Not kill his mother. Did you have an affair?”

“Emily, things are different at the clubs in Lubbock than they are in the La Sombra Café in Dos Pesos.” Rylee cleared her throat, leaned forward, then whispered, “Of course I had a fling or two. Everyone does. Chad wasn’t so clean himself. When I fooled around it was to get at him. Like I told you, he became my enemy. His mother, as it turned out, was collateral damage.”

“Rylee, that sounds so cold.”

Rylee laughed. “Well, she was.”

“And the police suspected nothing? No foul play.” Emily chuckled. “Listen to me. I sound like a detective on a television program. The whole thing just smells fishy. Where was the roll of tape?”

“Inside the garage. And wouldn’t you guess no fingerprints on it? Not even Mrs. Drakes’s. You’ve known me more than twenty years. Do I seem like someone who could do something like that?”

Emily shook her head. “No, no. Of course not.” She winced. “Was the door going into the house taped from inside the garage or inside the house? The police must’ve noticed that.”

“Oddly, from what I was told, from inside the house. But the police decided that since it wasn’t pressed down securely, she did it that way hoping it would stick. Again, no prints. What do I know? You sound suspicious. She might’ve been setting me up. Who knows? Do you really think I could do something like that? I’m Rylee Pruett. From Dos Pesos, Texas. Little Miss Goody Shoes. Do you really think I’d kill my mother-in-law just to get at my husband?”

“It just seems weird,” said Emily.

“It was weird. But what’s worse, really, a suicide they could keep on the hush hush or a murder? They don’t put suicides in the papers or on TV. I think that’s the way Mr. Drake saw it. And Chad wouldn’t want anything to soil his perfect reputation. They’d do anything to keep their names out of the papers and off of the news. That’s all they care about. What people think of them.”

“But you said Chad had his suspicions.”

“Good,” said Rylee. “I hope he dies from them. I didn’t do anything, but I hope he goes to his grave thinking that I did. It serves him right.” She took her last sip of iced tea.

“What now?” asked Emily.

“You’re a teacher. I’ve got my degree. I could get a job teaching. Not here. Certainly not in Lubbock. But somewhere. In the meantime, I’ll stay with my parents until I can’t take it anymore. Then I’ll look around. This town isn’t for me any longer. It probably never was. But I might just find someone like Carlos, have a kid or two and live off of the settlement I got from Chad. Who knows? I could live quite well in Austin, or Dallas, or wherever. Just not Lubbock or here. Next time, I promise you, you’ll be my maid of honor. I promise.”

“Matron of honor,” said Emily.

“What’s the difference?” Rylee asked.

“I’m an old married woman from the sticks,” Emily stated.