by Harlan Coben
“Then why do you do it?”
Myron shrugged. “Someone should care.”
She looked up, searching his face for a shred of sarcasm. “I see,” she said. “So tell me: what have you learned from your investigation?”
“Pavel Menansi abused your daughter.”
Myron watched for a reaction. Helen Van Slyke smiled semi-teasingly and put a sugar cube in her tea. Not exactly the reaction he had in mind. “You can’t be serious,” she said.
“I am.”
“What do you mean, abused?”
“Sexual abuse.”
“As in rape?”
“You may call it that, yes.”
She made a scoffing noise. “Come now, Mr. Bolitar. Isn’t that a tad extreme?”
“No.”
“It is not as though Pavel forced himself on her, is it? They had an affair. It’s hardly unheard of.”
“You knew about it?”
“Of course. And frankly, I was quite displeased. Pavel showed poor judgment. But my daughter was sixteen years old at the time—maybe seventeen, I’m not really sure. Anyway, she was certainly of legal age. Calling it rape or sexual abuse, well, I think that’s being a tad overdramatic, don’t you?”
Maybe both medication and booze. Maybe even mixing them. “Valerie was a young girl,” he said. “Pavel Menansi was her coach, a man of nearly fifty.”
“Would it have made it any better if he was forty? Or thirty?”
“No,” Myron said.
“So why bring up their age difference?” She put down the tea. The smile was again toying with her lips. “Let me ask you a question, Mr. Bolitar. If Valerie was a sixteen-year-old boy and he had an affair with a beautiful female coach who was, let’s say, thirty—would you call that sexual abuse? Would you call that rape?”
Myron hesitated for a second. It was a second too long.
“I thought so,” she said triumphantly. “You’re a sexist, Mr. Bolitar. Valerie had an affair with an older man. It happens all the time.” Again the playful smile. “To me even.”
“Did you have a breakdown after it was over?”
She raised an eyebrow. “So that’s your definition of abuse?” she asked. “A breakdown?”
“You entrusted your daughter to this man,” Myron said. “He was supposed to help her. But he used her instead. He tore her down. He destroyed and discarded her.”
“Tore? Destroyed? Discarded? My, my, Mr. Bolitar, we are out for shock effect, aren’t we?”
“You don’t see anything wrong with what he did?”
She put down her tea and took a cigarette. She lit it, inhaled deeply with her eyes closed, and let it all out. “If it makes you happy to blame me for what happened, fine, blame me. I was a lousy mother. The worst. Is that better?”
Myron watched her calmly smoking her cigarette and sipping her tea. Too calmly. Did she really buy this crap she was peddling? Or was it an act? Was she just deluding herself or …
“Pavel bought you off,” Myron said.
“No.”
“TruPro and Pavel are paying—”
“That’s not it at all,” she interrupted.
“We know about the money, Mrs. Van Slyke.”
“You don’t understand. Pavel blames himself for what happened. He took it upon himself to remedy the situation in the only way he could.”
“By paying you off.”
“By providing us with some of the funds Valerie may have earned had her career continued. He didn’t have to do that. The affair wasn’t necessarily the cause—”
“It’s called hush money.”
“Never,” she said in a near-hiss. “Valerie was my daughter.”
“And you sold her for cash.”
She shook her head. “I did what I thought was best for my daughter.”
“He abused her. You took his money. You let him get away with it.”
“There was nothing I could do,” she said. “We didn’t want to make it public. Valerie wanted to put it behind her. She wanted to keep it confidential. We all did.”
“Why?” Myron said. “It was just an affair with an older man. Happens all the time. To you even.”
She bit down on her lip for a moment. When she spoke again her voice was softer. “There was nothing I could do,” she repeated. “It was in everyone’s best interest to keep it quiet.”
“Bullshit,” Myron said. He realized he was pushing too hard, but something inside of him wouldn’t let him back off. “You sold your daughter.”
She was silent for a few moments, concentrating only on her cigarette, watching the ash grow longer and longer. In the distance they could hear the low rumble from the funeral crowd. Glasses clinking. A polite titter.
“They threatened Valerie,” she said.
“Who?”
“I don’t know. Men who work with Pavel. They made it very clear that if she opened her mouth she was dead.” She looked up, pleading. “Don’t you see? What option did we have? No good could come from talking. They’d kill her. I was afraid for Valerie. Kenneth—well, I think Kenneth was more interested in the money. Hindsight may be twenty-twenty, but at the time I believed it was the best thing.”
“You were protecting your daughter,” Myron said.
“Yes.”
“But she’s dead now.”
Helen was puzzled. “I don’t understand.”
“You don’t have to worry about her being hurt anymore. She’s dead. You’re free to do as you please.”
She opened her mouth, closed it, tried again. “I have another daughter,” she managed. “I have a husband.”
“So then what was all that talk before about protecting Valerie?”
“It … I was trying …” Her voice churned to a silence.
“You took the hush money,” Myron said. He tried to remind himself that the woman who sat before him had buried her daughter today, but not even that fact could slow him down. If anything, it seemed to fuel him. “Don’t blame your husband. He’s a spineless worm. You were Valerie’s mother. You took money to protect a man who abused your daughter. And now you’ll keep taking money to protect a man who might have killed her.”
“You have no proof Pavel had anything to do with her murder.”
“The murder, no. His other crimes against Valerie—that’s a different story.”
She closed her eyes. “It’s too late.”
“It’s not too late. He’s still doing it, you know. Guys like Pavel don’t stop. They just find new victims.”
“There’s nothing I can do.”
“I have a friend,” Myron said. “Her name is Jessica Culver. She’s a writer.”
“I know who she is.”
He handed her Jess’s card. “Tell her the story. She’ll write it up. Put it in a major publication. Sports Illustrated maybe. It’ll be out before Pavel’s people even know about it. They’re bad men, but they’re not wasteful or stupid. Once it’s published there’ll be no reason to go after your family anymore. It’ll end him.”
“I’m sorry.” She lowered her head. “I can’t do it.”
She was crumbling. Her whole body was slumped and shaking. Myron watched her, tried to muster up some pity, couldn’t do it. “You left her alone with him,” he continued. “You didn’t look after her. And when you had the chance to help her, you told her to bury it. You took money.”
Her body racked. Probably from a sob. Attacking a mother at her own daughter’s funeral, Myron thought. What could he do for an encore? Drown newborn kittens in the neighbor’s pool?
“Perhaps,” he went on, “Valerie wanted to tell the truth. Maybe she needed that to put it all behind her. And maybe that’s why she was murdered.”
Silence. Then without warning Helen Van Slyke raised her head. She stood and left without saying another word. Myron followed. When he reentered the living room he could hear her voice.
“Good of you to come. Thank you for coming.”
32
Lucinda Elr
ight was big and warm with thick, jiggly arms and an easy laugh. The kind of woman that as a child you feared would hug you too hard and as an adult you wish like hell she would.
“Come on in,” she said, shooing several small children away from the door.
“Thank you,” Myron said.
“You want something to eat?”
“No thanks.”
“How about some cookies?” There were at least ten kids in the apartment. All black, none over the age of seven or eight. Some were using a paint set. Some were building a castle out of sugar cubes. One, a boy about six years old, was sticking his tongue out at Myron. “Not homemade, you understand. I can’t cook worth spit.”
“Actually, cookies sound good.”
She smiled. “I do day care now that I’m retired. Hope you don’t mind.”
“Not at all.”
Mrs. Elright went into the kitchen. The little boy waited until she was out of the room. Then he stuck his tongue out again. Myron stuck his tongue out back. Mr. Mature. The kid giggled.
“Now sit, Myron. Right over there.” She knocked various paraphernalia off the sofa. The plate was full of the classics. Oreos. Chips Ahoys. Fig Newtons.
“Eat,” she said.
Myron reached for a cookie. The little boy stood behind Mrs. Elright so he couldn’t be seen. He stuck his tongue out again. Without so much as a backward glance Mrs. Elright said, “Gerald, you stick your tongue out one more time, I’ll cut it off with my pruning shears.”
Gerald rolled his tongue back. “What’s pruning shears?”
“Never you mind. Just go over there and play now, you hear? And don’t you be causing no trouble.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
When he was out of earshot Mrs. Elright said, “I like them better at this age. They break my heart when they get a little older.”
Myron nodded, pulled apart an Oreo. He didn’t lick out the cream. Very adult.
“Your friend Esperanza,” Mrs. Elright began, grabbing a Fig Newton. “She said you wanted to talk about Curtis Yeller.”
“Yes, ma’am.” He handed her the article. “Were you correctly quoted in this article?”
She lifted her half-moon reading glasses from her hefty bosom and scanned the page. “Yes, I said that.”
“Did you mean it?”
“This wasn’t just talk, if that’s what you’re getting at. I taught high school for twenty-seven years. I’ve seen lots of kids go to jail. I’ve seen lots of kids die in the streets. Never said a word to the newspapers about any of them. See this scar?” She pointed to an immense, fleshy bicep.
Myron nodded.
“Knife wound. From a student. I got shot at once too. I’ve confiscated more weapons than any damn metal detector.” She put her arm down. “That’s what I mean when I say I like them younger. Before they get like that.”
“But Curtis was different?”
“Curtis was more than just a good boy,” she said. “He was one of the best students I ever had. He was always polite and friendly and never caused a lick of trouble. But he wasn’t a sissy either, you understand. He was still popular with the other boys. Good at all kinds of sports. I’m telling you, the boy was one in a million.”
“What about his mother?” Myron asked. “What was she like?”
“Deanna?” Lucinda sat a little straighter. “Fine woman. Like so many of them young mothers today. Single. Proud. Did whatever she had to to get by. But Deanna was smart. She set rules. Curtis had a curfew. Kids today don’t even know what curfew means anymore. Couple nights ago, a ten-year-old boy got shot at three in the morning. Now you tell me, Myron—what’s a ten-year-old boy doing out on the streets at three in the morning?”
“I wish I knew.”
She waved a hand at the air. “Anyway you don’t want to hear no old woman rambling on.”
“I got time.”
“You’re a sweet man, but you’re here for a reason. A good reason, I think.”
She looked at Myron. He nodded but said nothing.
“Now,” she continued, slapping her thighs with her palms, “what were we talking about?”
“Deanna Yeller.”
“That’s right. Deanna. You know, I think about her a lot too. She was such a caring mother. She came to every open house. She loved parent-teacher conferences. She basked in all that praise we heaped on her boy.”
“Did you talk to her after his death?”
“Nope.” She shook her head hard and let out a sigh. “Never heard from Deanna again, poor woman. No funeral. No nothing. I called her a couple of times, but nobody ever answered. Like she fell off the face of the earth. But I understood. She’d always had it rough. From the start. She used to be a street girl, you know.”
“I didn’t know. When?”
“Oh, a long time ago. She doesn’t even know who Curtis’s father really was. But she quit. Got herself cleaned up. Worked like a dog, any job she could get. All for her boy. And then, just like that …” She shook her head. “Gone.”
“Did you know Errol Swade?” Myron asked.
“Just enough to know he was trouble. In and out of prison his whole life. He was Deanna’s sister’s boy. The sister was a junkie. Ended up dying of an overdose. Deanna had to take Errol in. He was family. She was a responsible woman.”
“How did Errol get along with Curtis?”
“Actually, they got along pretty good—considering how different they were.”
“Well, maybe they weren’t so different,” Myron said.
“What do you mean?”
“Errol got him to break into that tennis club.”
Lucinda Elright watched him a moment before she picked up a cookie and began to nibble. A small smile toyed with her lips. “Come on, Myron, you know better than that,” she said. “You’re a smart boy. So was Curtis. What would he want to steal way out there? It don’t make sense, robbing a place like that at night. Think about it.”
Myron had already. He was glad to see someone else had the same trouble with the official scenario. “So what do you think happened?”
“I’ve thought a lot about it, but I don’t really know. Nothing makes much sense to me about that whole night. But I do think Curtis and Errol were set up. Even if Curtis decided to steal—and even if he was dumb enough to break in to this club—I can’t believe he’d shoot at a police officer. A boy can change, but that’s like the tiger changing his stripes. It’s just too incredible.” She sat up, adjusting herself on the couch. “I think some fool thing happened at the rich white club and they needed a couple of black boys to take the fall. Now, I’m not that way. I’m not one of those who think the white man is always plotting against the black man. It’s just not in my nature. But in this case I don’t know what else could have happened.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Elright.”
“Lucinda. And Myron, do me a favor.”
“What?”
“When you find out what really happened to Curtis, let me know.”
33
Myron and Jessica drove out to New Jersey for dinner at Baumgart’s. They ate there at least twice a week. Baumgart’s was a strange combination. For half a century it had been a popular soda fountain and deli, the kind of place neighbors went for lunch and Archie took Veronica for an after-school smooch. Eight years ago a Chinese immigrant named Peter Li bought the place and turned it into the best Chinese around—but without getting rid of the old soda fountain. You could still twirl on a stool at the counter, surrounded by chrome and blenders and ice-cream scoops in hot water. You could order a milkshake with your dim sum and have french fries with your General Tso’s chicken. When they first lived together, Myron and Jess had come at least once a week. Now that they were back together, the tradition had resumed.
“It’s the Alexander Cross murder,” Myron said. “I can’t stop thinking about it.”
Before Jess could answer, Peter Li arrived. Myron and Jess never ordered. Peter chose for them. “Coral shrimp for the beautiful
lady,” he said, putting down her plate, “and Baumgart’s Szechuan chicken and eggplant for the man not fit to grovel at her feet.”
“Good one,” Myron said. “Very funny.”
Peter bowed. “In my country they consider me a man of great humor.”
“Must be a lot of laughs in your country.” Myron looked down at his plate. “I hate eggplant, Peter.”
“You’ll eat it and beg for more,” he said. He smiled at Jess. “Enjoy.” He left.
“Okay,” Jess said, “so what about Alexander Cross?”
“It’s not Alexander, per se. It’s actually Curtis Yeller. Everyone says he was a great kid. His mom was very involved, loved him like mad, the whole nine yards. Now she acts like nothing happened.”
“ ‘There’s a grief that can’t be spoken,’ ” Jessica replied. “ ‘There’s a pain goes on and on.’ ”
Myron thought a second. “Les Mis?” The ongoing game of Guess the Quote.
“Correct, but what character said it?”
“Valjean?”
“No, sorry. Marius.”
Myron nodded. “Either way,” he said, “it’s a lousy quote.”
“I know. I was listening to the tape in the car,” she said. “But it might not be that far off the mark.”
“A grief that can’t be spoken?”
“Yes.”
He took a sip of water. “So it makes sense to you, the mother acting like nothing happened.”
Jessica shrugged. “It’s been six years. What do you want her to do—break down and cry every time you come around?”
“No,” Myron said, “but I’d think she’d want to know who killed her son.”
Before touching her shrimp, Jessica reached across the table and forked a piece of Myron’s chicken. Not the eggplant. The chicken. “Maybe she already knows,” Jess said.
“What, you think she’s being bought off too?”
Jess shrugged. “Maybe. But that’s not what’s really bugging you.”
“Oh?”
Jess chewed daintily. Even the way she chewed food was a thing to behold. “Seeing Duane in that hotel room with Curtis Yeller’s mother,” she replied. “That’s what’s got to you.”