by Harlan Coben
"You're certain?"
His voice was firm. "Very."
Carlson looked toward Kim. "Mrs. Parker?"
"He loved her so much."
"I understand that, ma'am. But many wife-beaters profess to loving their wives."
"He never hit her."
Hoyt stopped pacing. "What's going on here?"
Carlson looked at Stone for a moment. "I want to show you some photographs, if I may. They are a bit disturbing, but I think they're important."
Stone handed Carlson the manila envelope. Carlson opened it. One by one, he placed the photographs of the bruised Elizabeth on a coffee table. He watched for a reaction. Kim Parker, as expected, let out a small cry. Hoyt Parker's face seemed at odds with itself, settling into a distant blankness.
"Where did you get these?" Hoyt asked softly.
"Have you seen them before?"
"Never," he said. He looked at his wife. She shook her head.
"But I remember the bruises," Kim Parker offered.
"When?"
"I can't remember exactly. Not long before she died. But when I saw them, they were less" ' she searched for the word ' "pronounced."
"Did your daughter tell you how she got them?"
"She said she was in a car accident."
"Mrs. Parker, we've checked with your wife's insurance company. She never reported a car accident. We checked police files. No one ever made a claim against her. No policeman ever filled out a report."
"So what are you saying?" Hoyt came in.
"Simply this: If your daughter wasn't in a car accident, how did she get these bruises?"
"You think her husband gave them to her?"
"It's a theory we're working on."
"Based on what?"
The two men hesitated. The hesitation said one of two things: not in front of the lady or not in front of the civilian. Hoyt picked up on it. "Kim, do you mind if I talk to the agents alone for moment?"
"Not at all." She stood on wobbly legs and teetered toward the stairs. "I'll be in the bedroom."
When she was out of sight, Hoyt said, "Okay, I'm listening."
"We don't think Dr. Beck just beat your daughter," Carlson said. "We think he murdered her."
Hoyt looked from Carlson to Stone and back to Carlson, as though waiting for the punch line. When none came, he moved to the chair. "You better start explaining."
Chapter 14
What else had Elizabeth been keeping from me?
As I headed down Tenth Avenue toward the Quick n-Park, I again tried to dismiss those photographs as merely a record of her car accident injuries. I remembered how nonchalant Elizabeth had been about the whole thing at the time. Just a fender-bender, she said. No big deal. When I asked for details, she had pretty much brushed me off.
Now I knew that she'd lied to me about it.
I could tell you that Elizabeth never lied to me, but that would be, in light of this recent discovery, a pretty unconvincing argument. This was, however, the first lie I was aware of. I guess we both had our secrets.
When I reached the Quick-n-Park, I spotted something strange ' or perhaps, I should say, someone strange. There, on the corner, was a man in a tan overcoat.
He was looking at me.
And he was oddly familiar. No one I knew, but there was still the unease of d+!j+ vu. I'd seen this man before. This morning even. Where? I ran through my morning and spotted him in my mind's eye:
When I pulled over for coffee at eight A.M. The man with the tan overcoat had been there. In the parking lot of Starbucks.
Was I sure?
No, of course not. I diverted my eyes and hurried over to the attendant's booth. The parking attendant ' his name tag read Carlo ' was watching television and eating a sandwich. He kept his eyes on the screen for half a minute before sliding his gaze toward me. Then he slowly brushed the crumbs off his hands, took my ticket, and stamped it. I quickly paid the man and he handed me my key.
The man in the tan overcoat was still there.
I tried very hard not to look in his direction as I walked to my car. I got in, started it up, and when I hit Tenth Avenue, I checked the rearview mirror.
The man with the tan overcoat didn't so much as glance at me. I kept watching him until I turned toward the West Side Highway. He never looked in my direction. Paranoid. I was going nutsy paranoid.
So why had Elizabeth lied to me?
I thought about it and came up with nothing.
There were still three hours until my Bat Street message came in. Three hours. Man, I needed to distract myself. Thinking too hard about what might be on the other end of that cyber-connection shredded my stomach lining.
I knew what I had to do. I was just trying to delay the inevitable.
When I got home, Grandpa was in his customary chair, alone. The television was off. The nurse was yakking on the phone in Russian. She wasn't going to work out. I'd have to call the agency and get her replaced.
Small particles of egg were stuck to the corners of Grandpa's mouth, so I took out a handkerchief and gently scraped them away. Our eyes met, but his gaze was locked on something far beyond me. I saw us all up at the lake. Grandpa would be doing his beloved weight-loss before-and-after pose. He'd turn profile, slump, let his elastic gut hang out, and shout "Before!" and then suck it up and flex and yell "After!" He did it brilliantly. My father would howl. Dad had the greatest, most infectious laugh. It was a total body release. I used to have it too. It died with him. I could never laugh like that again. Somehow it seemed obscene.
Hearing me, the nurse hurried off the phone and hightailed it into the room with a bright smile. I didn't return it.
I eyed the basement door. I was still delaying the inevitable.
No more stalling.
"Stay with him," I said.
The nurse bowed her head and sat down.
The basement had been finished in the days before people finished basements, and it showed. The once-brown shag carpet was pockmarked and water-buckled. Faux white brick made from some sort of bizarre synthetic had been glued to asphalt walls. Some sheets had fallen to the shag; others stopped mid-topple, like columns of the Acropolis.
In the center of the room, the Ping-Pong table's green had been washed to an almost in-vogue spearmint. The torn net looked like the barricades after the French troops stormed. The paddles were stripped down to the splintery wood.
Some cardboard boxes, many sprouting mold, sat on top of the Ping-Pong table. Others were piled in the corner. Old clothes were in wardrobe boxes. Not Elizabeth's. Shauna and Linda had cleared those out for me. Goodwill got them, I think. But some of the other boxes held old items. Her items. I couldn't throw them away, and I couldn't let other people have them. I'm not sure why. Some things we pack away, stick in the back of the closet, never expect to see again ' but we can't quite make ourselves discard them. Like dreams, I guess.
I wasn't sure where I had put it, but I knew it was there. I started going through old photographs, once again averting my gaze. I was pretty good at that, though as time went on, the photographs hurt less and less. When I saw Elizabeth and me together in some greening Polaroid, it was as though I were looking at strangers.
I hated doing this.
I dug deeper into the box. My fingertips hit something made of felt, and I pulled out her tennis varsity letter from high school. With a sad smirk, I remembered her tan legs and the way her braid bounced as she hopped toward the net. On the court, her face was locked in pure concentration. That was how Elizabeth would beat you. She had decent enough ground strokes and a pretty good serve, but what lifted her above her classmates was that focus.
I put the letter down gingerly and started digging again. I found what I was looking for at the bottom.
Her daily planner.
The police had wanted it after the abduction. Or so I was told. Rebecca came by the apartment and helped them find it. I assume they searched for clues in it ' the same thing I was about to do-but when the
body popped up with the K branding, they probably stopped.
I thought about that some more ' about how everything had been neatly pinned on KillRoy ' and another thought scurried through my brain. I ran upstairs to my computer and got online. I found the Web site for the New York City Department of Correction. Tons of stuff on it, including the name and phone number I needed.
I signed off and called Briggs Penitentiary.
That's the prison that holds KillRoy
When the recording came on, I pressed in the proper extension and was put through. Three rings later, a man said, "Deputy Superintendent Brown speaking."
I told him that I wanted to visit Elroy Kellerton.
"And you are?" he said.
"Dr. David Beck. My wife, Elizabeth Beck, was one of his victims.
"I see." Brown hesitated. "May I ask the purpose of your visit?"
"No."
There was more silence on the line.
"I have the right to visit him if he's willing to see me," I said.
"Yes, of course, but this is a highly unusual request."
"I'm still making it."
"The normal procedure is to have your attorney go through his'"
"But I don't have to," I interrupted. I learned this at a victim's rights Web site ' that I could make the request myself. If Kellerton was willing to see me, I was in. "I just want to talk to Kellerton. You have visiting hours tomorrow, don't you?"
"Yes, we do."
"Then if Kellerton agrees, I'll be up tomorrow. Is there a problem with that?"
"No, sir. If he agrees, there's no problem."
I thanked him and hung up the phone. I was taking action. It felt damn good.
The day planner sat on the desk next to me. I was avoiding it again, because as painful as a photograph or recording might be, handwriting was somehow worse, somehow more personal. Elizabeth's soaring capital letters, the firmly crossed ts, the too many loops between letters, the way it all tilted to the right...
I spent an hour going through it. Elizabeth was detailed. She didn't shorthand much. What surprised me was how well I'd known my wife. Everything was clear, and there were no surprises. In fact, there was only one appointment I couldn't account for.
Three weeks before her death, there was an entry that read simply: PF.
And a phone number without an area code.
In light of how specific she'd been elsewhere, I found this entry a little unsettling. I didn't have a clue what the area code would be. The call was made eight years ago. Area codes had split and changed several different ways since then.
I tried 201 and got a disconnect. I tried 973. An old lady answered. I told her she'd won a free subscription to the New York Post. She gave me her name. Neither initial matched. I tried 212, which was the city. And that was where I hit bingo.
"Peter Flannery, attorney at law," a woman said mid-yawn.
"May I speak to Mr. Flannery, please."
"He's in court."
She could have sounded more bored but not without a quality prescription. I heard a lot of noise in the background.
"I'd like to make an appointment to see Mr. Flannery."
"You answering the billboard ad?"
"Billboard ad?"
"You injured?"
"Yes," I said. "But I didn't see an ad. A friend recommended him. It's a medical malpractice case. I came in with a broken arm and now I can't move it. I lost my job. The pain is nonstop."
She set me up for an appointment tomorrow afternoon.
I put the phone back into the cradle and frowned. What would Elizabeth be doing with a probable ambulance-chaser like Flannery?
The sound of the phone made me jump. I snatched it up mid ring.
"Hello," I said.
It was Shauna. "Where are you?" she asked.
"Home."
"You need to get over here right away," she said.
Chapter 15
Agent Carlson looked Hoyt Parker straight in the eye. "As you know, we recently found two bodies in the vicinity of Lake Charmaine."
Hoyt nodded.
A cell phone chirped. Stone managed to hoist himself up and said "Excuse me" before lumbering into the kitchen. Hoyt turned back to Carlson and waited.
"We know the official account of your daughter's death," Carlson said. "She and her husband, David Beck, visited the lake for an annual ritual. They went swimming in the dark. KillRoy lay in wait. He assaulted Dr. Beck and kidnapped your daughter. End of story."
"And you don't think that's what happened?"
"No, Hoyt ' can I call you Hoyt?"
Hoyt nodded.
"No, Hoyt, we don't."
"So how do you see it?"
"I think David Beck murdered your daughter and pinned it on a serial killer."
Hoyt, a twenty-eight-year veteran of the NYPD, knew how to keep a straight face, but he still leaned back as though the words were jabs at his chin. "Let's hear it."
"Okay, let's start from the beginning. Beck takes your daughter up to a secluded lake, right?"
"Right."
"You've been there?"
"Many times."
"Oh?"
"We were all friends. Kim and I were close to David's parents. We used to visit all the time."
"Then you know how secluded it is."
"Yes."
"Dirt road, a sign that you'd only see if you knew to look for it. It's as hidden as hidden can be. No signs of life."
"What's your point?"
"What are the odds of KillRoy pulling up that road?"
Hoyt raised his palms to the sky. "What are the odds of anyone meeting up with a serial killer?"
"True, okay, but in other cases, there was a logic to it. Kellerton abducted somebody off a city street, he car jacked a victim, even broke into a house. But think about it. He sees this dirt road and somehow decides to search for a victim up there? I'm not saying it's impossible, but it's highly unlikely."
Hoyt said, "Go on."
"You'll admit that there are plenty of logic holes in the accepted scenario."
"All cases have logic holes."
"Right, okay, but let me try an alternate theory on you. Let's just say that Dr. Beck wanted to kill your daughter."
"Why?"
"For one thing, a two-hundred-thousand-dollar life insurance policy."
"He doesn't need money."
"Everyone needs money, Hoyt. You know that."
"I don't buy it."
"Look, we're still digging here. We don't know all the motivations yet. But let me just go through our scenario, okay?"
Hoyt gave him a suit-yourself shrug.
"We have evidence here that Dr. Beck beat her."
"What evidence? You have some photographs. She told my wife she'd been in a car accident."
"Come on, Hoyt." Carlson swept his hand at the photographs. "Look at the expression on your daughter's face. That look like the face of a woman in a car accident?"
No, Hoyt thought, it didn't. "Where did you find these pictures?"
"I'll get to that in a second, but let's go back to my scenario, okay? Let's assume for the moment that Dr. Beck beat your daughter and that he had a hell of an inheritance coming his way."
"Lot of assuming."
"True, but stay with me. Think of the accepted scenario and all those holes. Now compare it with this one: Dr. Beck brings your daughter up to a secluded spot where he knows there will be no witnesses. He hires two thugs to grab her. He knows about KillRoy It's in all the papers. Plus your brother worked on the case. Did he ever discuss it with you or Beck?"
Hoyt sat still for a moment. "Go on."
"The two hired thugs abduct and kill your daughter. Naturally, the first suspect will be the husband ' always is in a case like this, right? But the two thugs brand her cheek with the letter K. Next thing we know, it's all blamed on KillRoy "But Beck was assaulted. His head injury was real."
"Sure, but we both know that's not inconsistent with him being behind it.
How would Beck explain coming out of the abduction healthy? "Hi, guess what, someone kidnapped my wife, but I'm fine'? It'd never play. Getting whacked on the head gave his story credibility."
"He took a hell of a shot."
"He was dealing with thugs, Hoyt. They probably miscalculated. And what about his injury anyway? He tells some bizarre story about miraculously crawling out of the water and dialing 911. I gave several doctors Beck's old medical chart. They claim his account of what he did defies medical logic. It would have been pretty much impossible, given his injuries."
Hoyt considered that. He had often wondered about that himself. How had Beck survived and called for help? "What else?" Hoyt said.
"There's strong evidence that suggests the two thugs, not KillRoy, assaulted Beck."
"What evidence?"
"Buried with the bodies, we found a baseball bat with blood on it. The full DNA match will take a while, but the preliminary results strongly suggest that the blood is Beck's."
Agent Stone plodded back in the room and sat down hard. Hoyt once again said, "Go on."
"The rest is pretty obvious. The two thugs do the job. They kill your daughter and pin it on KillRoy Then they come back to get the rest of their payment ' or maybe they decide to extort more money from Dr. Beck. I don't know. Whatever, Beck has to get rid of them. He sets up a meet in the secluded woods near Lake Charmaine. The two thugs probably thought they were dealing with a wimpy doctor or maybe he caught them unprepared. Either way Beck shoots them and buries the bodies along with the baseball bat and whatever evidence might haunt him later on. The perfect crime now. Nothing to tie him with the murder. Let's face it. If we didn't get enormously lucky, the bodies would have never been found."
Hoyt shook his head. "Hell of a theory."
"There's more."
"Like?"
Carlson looked at Stone. Stone pointed to his cell phone. "I just got a strange phone call from someone at Briggs Penitentiary," Stone said. "It seems your son-in-law called there today and demanded a meeting with KillRoy."
Hoyt now looked openly stunned. "Why the hell would he do that?"
"You tell us," Stone responded. "But keep in mind that Beck knows we're onto him. All of a sudden, he has this overwhelming desire to visit the man he set up as your daughter's killer."
"Hell of a coincidence," Carlson added.