by Harlan Coben
On the radio a rock group called the Motels were repeatedly singing the ingenious line Take the L out of lover, and it’s over. Deep. Literal, but still deep. The Motels. Whatever happened to them?
Myron picked up the cellular phone and dialed. A familiar voice answered.
“Sheriff Courter speaking.”
“Hey, Jake, it’s Myron.”
“I’m sorry. You must have the wrong number. Bye.”
“Good one,” Myron said. “Guess those night-school comedy courses are finally starting to pay off.”
“What do you want, Myron?”
“Can’t a friend just call and say hello?”
“So this is just a social call?” Jake said.
“Yes.”
“I feel so blessed.”
“Wait. It gets better. I’m going to be in your neck of the woods in a couple of hours.”
“Be still my heart.”
“I thought maybe we could meet for lunch. I’m buying.”
“Uh-huh. You bringing Win?”
“No.”
“Then okay. Guy gives me the creeps.”
“You don’t even know him.”
“Cool by me. Now what do you want, Myron? This may be a surprise to you, but I work for a living.”
“You still have friends on the Philadelphia force?”
“Sure.”
“Can you get someone to fax you a homicide file?”
“Recent homicide?”
“Er, not exactly.”
“How old?”
“Six years,” Myron said.
“You’re kidding, right?”
“It gets worse. The victim was Alexander Cross.”
“The senator’s kid?”
“Right.”
“What the hell do you want that for?”
“I’ll tell you about it when I get there.”
“Someone is going to want to know why.”
“Make something up.”
Jake chewed on something that sounded like tree bark. “Yeah, all right. What time will you be here?”
“Probably around one. I’ll call you.”
“You’re going to owe me, Myron. Owe me big.”
“Didn’t I mention I was buying lunch?”
Jake hung up.
Myron headed off at exit 6. The toll was almost four dollars. He was tempted to pay the Caddy’s toll, but four dollars was a bit steep for the gesture. Myron handed the clerk the money. “I only wanted to drive on the road,” Myron said. “Not buy it.”
Not even a sympathetic smile. Complaining about toll prices. One of those signs you’re becoming your father. Next thing you know Myron’d be screaming at someone for turning up the thermostat.
Altogether the trip to Philadelphia’s wealthiest suburb took two hours. Gladwynne was old money. Plymouth Rock old money. Bloodlines were as important as credit lines. The house Valerie Simpson had grown up in was Gatsby-esque with signs of fray. The lawn was not quite manicured. The shrubbery was slightly overgrown. The paint was chipped in certain places. The ivy crawling along the walls seemed a tad too thick.
Still, the estate was huge. Myron parked so far away he almost waited for shuttle service. As he approached the front door Detectives Dimonte and Krinsky came out. In a major shock, Dimonte did not appear happy to see him. He put his hands on his hips. Important, impatient.
“What the fuck are you doing here?” he barked.
“Do you know what happened to the Motels?” Myron asked.
“The what?”
Myron shook his head. “How quickly they forget.”
“Goddamn it, Bolitar, I asked you a question. What do you want here?”
“You left your underpants at my house last night,” Myron said. “Jockey shorts. Size thirty-eight. Little bunny design.”
Dimonte’s face grew red. Most cops were homophobes. Best way to needle them was to play on it. “You better not be playing fucking Hardy Boys with my case, asshole. You and your pal Psycho-yuppie.”
Krinsky laughed at that one. Psycho-yuppie. When ol’ Rolly got hold of a good one he didn’t let it go.
“Doesn’t matter,” Dimonte continued. “The case is just about wrapped up.”
“And I’ll be able to say I knew you when.”
“You’ll be happy to know your client is no longer my main suspect.”
Myron nodded. “Roger Quincy the stalker is.”
That didn’t please Dimonte. “How the fuck do you know about that?”
“I am all-seeing, all-knowing.”
“Doesn’t mean your boy is fully in the clear. He’s still lying about something. You know it. I know it. Krinsky here knows it.”
Krinsky sort of nodded. Mr. Sidekick.
“But now we just figure your boy was porking her. You know, on the side.”
“You have any evidence?”
“Don’t need none. Don’t give a shit. I want her killer, not her porker.”
“Poetically put, Rolly.”
“Ah screw it, I don’t have time for your wit.”
As they passed, Myron gave a little wave. “Nice talking to you, Krinsky.”
Krinsky nodded.
Myron rang the doorbell. It rang dramatically. Sounded like an orchestra. Tchaikovsky maybe. Maybe not. A man of about thirty came to the door. He was dressed in a pink oxford shirt open at the neck. Ralph Lauren. Big dimple on chin. Hair so black it was almost blue, like Superman’s.
He looked at Myron like he was a vagrant urinating on the steps. “Yes?”
“I’m here to see Mrs. Van Slyke.” Valerie’s mother had remarried.
“Now is not a good time,” he said.
“I have an appointment.”
“Perhaps you didn’t hear me,” he said in that haughty, Win-like accent. “Now is not a good time.”
“Please tell Mrs. Van Slyke that Myron Bolitar is here,” Myron persisted. “She is expecting me. Windsor Lockwood spoke with her last night.”
“Mrs. Van Slyke isn’t seeing anybody today. Her daughter was murdered yesterday.”
“I’m aware of that.”
“Then you’ll understand—”
“Kenneth?”
A woman’s voice.
“It’s okay, Helen,” the man said. “I’m handling the situation.”
“Who is it, Kenneth?”
“No one.”
Myron said, “Myron Bolitar.”
Kenneth shot Myron a look. Myron held back the temptation to stick out his tongue. It wasn’t easy.
She appeared in the foyer. All in black. Her eyes were red with equally red rims. She was an attractive woman, though Myron ventured to guess she was probably a lot more attractive twenty-four hours ago. Late forties. Blond hair, softly colored. Nicely coiffed. Not too bleachy.
“Please come in, Mr. Bolitar.”
Kenneth said, “I don’t think that’s such a good idea, Helen.”
“It’s okay, Kenneth.”
“You need your rest.”
She took Myron’s arm. “Please forgive my husband, Mr. Bolitar. He is just trying to protect me.”
Husband? Did she say husband?
“Please follow me.”
She led him into a room slightly larger than the Acropolis. Over the fireplace hung a gigantic portrait of a man with long sideburns and a walrus mustache. Kinda scary. The room was lit by a half dozen of those fixtures that look like candles. The furniture, while old-world tasteful, seemed a tad too worn. There wasn’t a silver tea set, but there should have been. Myron sat in an antique chair about as comfortable as an iron lung. Kenneth kept his eye on Myron. Making sure he didn’t pocket an ashtray or something.
Helen sat on the couch across from him. Kenneth stood behind her, hands on her shoulders. Would have made a nice photograph. Very regal. A little girl, no more than three or four, toddled into the room. “This is Cassie,” Helen Van Slyke said. “Valerie’s sister.”
Myron smiled widely and leaned toward the little girl. “Hello,
Cassie.”
The little girl responded by bawling like she’d just been stabbed.
Helen Van Slyke comforted her daughter, and after a few more wails Cassie stopped. She peeked out behind balled-up fists every once in a while to study Myron. Maybe she too feared for the safety of the ashtrays.
“Windsor tells me you’re a sports agent,” Helen Van Slyke said.
“Yes.”
“Were you going to represent my daughter?”
“We were discussing the possibility.”
Kenneth said, “I don’t see why this conversation can’t wait, Helen.”
She ignored him. “So why did you want to see me, Mr. Bolitar?”
“I’d just like to ask you a few questions.”
“What kind of questions?” Kenneth asked. Sneering suspicion.
Helen silenced him with her hand. “Please go ahead, Mr. Bolitar.”
“I understand Valerie was hospitalized about six years ago.”
“What does that have to do with anything?” Kenneth again.
“Kenneth, please leave us alone.”
“But Helen—”
“Please. Take Cassie for a walk.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
He protested, but he was no match for her. She closed her eyes, signaling the argument’s end. Grudgingly Kenneth took his daughter’s hand. When they were out of earshot, she said, “He is a bit overprotective.”
“It’s understandable,” Myron said. “Under the circumstances.”
“Why do you want to know about Valerie’s hospitalization?”
“I’m trying to put some loose ends together.”
She studied his face for a moment. “You’re trying to find my daughter’s killer, aren’t you?”
“Yes.”
“May I ask why?”
“There are several reasons.”
“I’ll accept one.”
“Valerie tried to reach me before the murder,” Myron said. “She called my office three times.”
“That hardly makes you responsible.”
Myron said nothing.
Helen Van Slyke took a deep breath. “And you think her murder has something to do with her breakdown?”
“I don’t know.”
“The police feel quite certain the killer is a man who stalked Valerie.”
“What do you think?”
She stayed perfectly still. “I don’t know. Roger Quincy seemed harmless enough. But I guess they all seem harmless until something like this happens. He used to write her love letters all the time. They were sort of sweet, in a kooky kind of way.”
“Do you still have them?”
“I just gave them to the police.”
“Do you remember what they said?”
“They vacillated between almost normal courting words and outright obsession. Sometimes he would simply ask her on a date. Other times he would write about eternal love and how they were destined to be together forever.”
“How did Valerie react?”
“Sometimes it scared her. Sometimes it amused her. But mostly she ignored it. We all did. No one took it too seriously.”
“What about Pavel? Was he concerned?”
“Not overly.”
“Did he hire a bodyguard for Valerie?”
“No. He was dead set against the idea. He thought a bodyguard might spook her.”
Myron paused. Valerie hadn’t needed a bodyguard against a stalker, yet Pavel needs one against pestering parents and autograph hounds. It made one wonder. “I’d like to talk about Valerie’s breakdown, if that’s all right.”
Helen Van Slyke stiffened slightly. “I think it’s best to leave that alone, Mr. Bolitar.”
“Why?”
“It was painful. You have no idea how painful. My daughter had a mental collapse, Mr. Bolitar. She was only eighteen years old. Beautiful. Talented. A professional athlete. Successful by any rational measure. And she had a breakdown. It was stressful on all of us. We tried our best to help her get well, to keep it from getting in the papers and becoming public. We tried our best to keep it under wraps.”
She stopped then and closed her eyes.
“Mrs. Van Slyke.”
“I’m fine,” she said.
Silence.
“You were saying how you tried to keep it under wraps,” Myron prompted.
The eyes reopened. She smiled and sort of smoothed her skirt. “Yes, well, I didn’t want this episode ruining her life. You know how people talk. For the rest of her life people would point and whisper. I didn’t want that. And yes, I was embarrassed too. I was younger, Mr. Bolitar. I was afraid of how her breakdown would reflect on the Brentman family name.”
“Brentman?”
“My maiden name. This estate is known as Brentman Hall. My first husband was named Simpson. A mistake. A social climber. Kenneth is my second husband. I know tongues wag about our age differences, but the Van Slykes are an old family. His great-great-grandfather and my great-grandfather were partners.”
Good reason to get married. “How long have you and Kenneth been married?”
“Six years last April.”
“I see. So you got married around the same time Valerie was hospitalized.”
Her eyes narrowed and her words came slower now. “What exactly are you implying, Mr. Bolitar?”
“Nothing,” Myron said. “I wasn’t implying anything. Really.” Well, maybe a little. “Tell me about Alexander Cross.”
She stiffened again, almost like a spasm. “What about him?” She sounded annoyed now.
“He and Valerie were serious?”
“Mr. Bolitar”—impatience creeping in—“Windsor Lockwood is an old family friend. He is the reason I agreed to see you. You earlier portrayed yourself as a man concerned with finding my daughter’s killer.”
“I am.”
“Then please tell me what Alexander Cross or Valerie’s breakdown or my own marriage has to do with your task?”
“I am making an assumption, Mrs. Van Slyke. I am assuming that this was not a random killing, that the person who shot your daughter was not a stranger. That means I have to know about her life. All of it. I don’t ask these questions to amuse myself. I need to know who would have feared Valerie or hated her or had a lot to gain by her death. That means digging into all the unpleasantries of her life.”
She held his gaze a beat too long and then looked away. “Just what do you know about my daughter, Mr. Bolitar?”
“The basics,” Myron said. “Valerie became tennis’s next wunderkind at the French Open when she was only sixteen. Expectations ran wild, but her play quickly leveled off. Then it grew worse. She was stalked by an obsessive fan named Roger Quincy. She had a relationship with the son of a prominent politician, who was later murdered. Then she had a mental collapse. Now I need to fill in—and illuminate—more pieces of this puzzle.”
“It’s very difficult to talk about all this.”
“I understand that,” Myron said gently. He opted now for the Alan Alda smile over the Phil Donahue. More teeth, moister eyes.
“There’s nothing more I can tell you, Mr. Bolitar. I don’t know why anyone would want to kill her.”
“Perhaps you can tell me about the last few months,” Myron said. “How was Valerie feeling? Did anything unusual happen?”
Helen fiddled with her strand of pearls, twisting them around her fingers until they made a red mark around her neck. “She finally started getting better,” she said, her voice more of a choke now. “I think tennis helped. For years she wouldn’t touch a racket. Then she started playing. A little at first. Just for fun.”
The facade collapsed then. Helen Van Slyke lost it. The tears came hard. Myron took her hand. Her grip was both strong and shaky.
“I’m sorry,” Myron said.
She shook her head, forcing the words out. “Valerie started playing every day. It made her stronger. Physically, emotionally. She finally seemed to be putting it all
behind her. And then …” She stopped again, her eyes suddenly flat. “That bastard.”
She might have been talking about the unknown killer. But somehow the anger seemed more specific.
“Who?” Myron tried.
“Helen?”
Kenneth was back. He quickly crossed the room and took his wife in his arms. Myron thought he saw her back away at his touch, but he couldn’t be sure.
Kenneth looked over her shoulder at Myron. “See what you’ve done,” he hissed. “Get out.”
“Mrs. Van Slyke?”
She nodded. “Please leave, Mr. Bolitar. It’s for the best.”
“Are you sure?”
Kenneth bellowed again. “Get out! Now! Before I throw you out!”
Myron looked at him. Not the time or the place. “I’m sorry for the intrusion, Mrs. Van Slyke. My most sincere condolences.”
Myron showed himself out.
9
When Myron entered the small police station Jake’s chin was coated with something red and sticky. Might have been from a jelly doughnut. Might have been from a small farm animal. Hard to tell with Jake.
Jake Courter had been elected sheriff of Reston, New Jersey two years before. In view of the fact that Jake was black in an almost entirely white community, most people considered the election result an upset. But not Jake. Reston was a college town. College towns were filled with liberal intellectuals who wanted to lift a black man up. Jake figured his skin color had been enough of a disadvantage over the years, might as well turn the tide. White guilt, he told Myron. The best vote-getter this side of Willie Horton ads.
Jake was in his early fifties. He’d been a cop in a half dozen major cities over the years—New York, Philadelphia, Boston, to name a few. Tired of chasing city scum, he’d moved out to the happy suburbs to chase suburban scum. Myron and Jake met a year ago, investigating the disappearance of Kathy Culver, Jessica’s sister, a student at Reston University.
“Hey, Myron.”
“Jake.”
Jake looked, as always, rumpled. Everything about him. His hair. His clothes. Even his desk looked rumpled, like a cotton shirt kept in the bottom of a laundry hamper. The desk also had an assortment of goodies. A Pizza Hut box. A Wendy’s bag. A Carvel ice-cream cup. A half-eaten sandwich from Blimpie. And, of course, a tin of Slim-Fast diet powder. Jake was closing in on two hundred and seventy-five pounds. His pants never fit right. They were too small for his stomach, too large for his waist. He was constantly adjusting them, searching for that one elusive point where they’d actually stay in place. The search required a team of top scientists and a really powerful microscope.