by Harlan Coben
Yet Myron felt his cheeks go scarlet. Something inside of him began to fume.
Tad was still droning on. Myron interrupted him.
“Did Jack find out?”
Tad stopped. “I don’t know,” he said. “But I think maybe he did.”
“What makes you say that?”
“It was just the way he acted. We played two rounds together. I know we were competitors and that he was trying to intimidate me. But I kind of got the impression he knew.”
Myron lowered his head into his hands. He felt sick to his stomach.
Tad asked, “Do you think it’ll get out?”
Myron held back a chuckle. This would be one of the biggest news stories of the year. The media would attack like old women at a Loehmann’s clearance sale. “I don’t know, Tad.”
“What do we do?”
“We hope it doesn’t get out.”
Tad was scared. “And if it does?”
Myron faced him. Tad Crispin looked so damn young—check that, he was young. Most kids his age are happily pulling fraternity pranks. And when you thought about it, what had Tad really done that was so bad? Slept with an older woman who for some odd reason remained in a dead marriage. Hardly unnatural. Myron tried to picture himself at Tad’s age. If a beautiful older woman like Linda Coldren had come on to him, would he have stood a chance?
Like, duh. He probably did not stand a chance now.
But what about Linda Coldren? Why did she stay in this dead marriage? Religion? Doubtful. For the sake of her son? The kid was sixteen years old. It might not be easy, but he’d survive.
“Myron, what’ll happen if the media find out?”
But Myron was suddenly no longer thinking about the media. He was thinking about the police. He was thinking about Victoria Wilson and reasonable doubt. Linda Coldren had probably told her ace attorney about her affair with Tad Crispin. Victoria would have seen it too.
Who is declared U.S. Open champion now that Jack Coldren is dead?
Who doesn’t have to worry about out-choking the choker in front of a massive audience?
Who has all the same motives to kill Jack Coldren that Myron had earlier assigned to Esme Fong?
Whose squeaky-clean image might get soiled by a Coldren divorce, especially one where Jack Coldren would name his wife’s indiscretion?
Who was having an affair with the deceased’s wife?
The answer to all the above was sitting in front of him.
35
Tad Crispin left not long after that.
Myron and Win settled into the couch. They put on Woody Allen’s Broadway Danny Rose, one of Woody’s most underrated masterpieces. What a flick. Rent it sometime.
During the scene where Mia drags Woody to the fortune-teller, Esperanza arrived.
She coughed into her fist. “I, ahem, don’t want to sound didactic or fictitious in any manner,” she began, doing a great Woody impression. She had his timing, the speech delay tactics. She had the hand mannerisms. She had the New York accent. It was her best work. “But I may have some important information.”
Myron looked up. Win kept his eyes on the screen.
“I located the man Lloyd Rennart bought the bar from twenty years ago,” Esperanza said, returning to her own voice. “Rennart paid him in cash. Seven grand. I also checked on the house in Spring Lake Heights. Bought at the same time for $21,000. No mortgage.”
“Lots of expenses,” Myron said, “for a washed-up caddie.”
“Sí, señor. And to make matters more interesting, I also found no indication that he worked or paid taxes from the time he was fired by Jack Coldren until he purchased the Rusty Nail bar.”
“Could be an inheritance.”
“I would doubt it,” Esperanza said. “I managed to go back to 1971 and found no record of him paying any inheritance tax.”
Myron looked at Win. “What do you think?”
Win’s eyes were still on the screen. “I’m not listening.”
“Right, I forgot.” He looked back at Esperanza. “Anything else?”
“Esme Fong’s alibi checks out. I spoke to Miguel. She never left the hotel.”
“Is he solid?”
“Yeah, I think so.”
Strike one. “Anything else?”
“Not yet. But I found the office for the local paper in Narberth. They have the back editions in a storage room. I’ll go through them tomorrow, see what I can dig up on the car accident.”
Esperanza grabbed a take-out container and a pair of chopsticks from the kitchen and then she plopped down on the open couch. A mafioso hit man was calling Woody a cheesehead. Woody commented that he had no idea what that meant, but he was confident it wasn’t a good thing. Ah, the Woodman.
Ten minutes into Love and Death, not long after Woody wondered how old Nahampkin could be younger than young Nahampkin, exhaustion overtook Myron. He fell asleep on the couch. A deep sleep. No dreams. No stirring. Nothing but the long fall down the deep well.
He woke up at eight-thirty. The television was off. A clock ticked and then chimed. Someone had laid a comforter over Myron while he’d been sleeping. Win probably. He checked the other bedrooms. Win and Esperanza were both gone.
He showered and dressed and put on some coffee. The phone rang. Myron picked it up and said, “Hello.”
It was Victoria Wilson. She still sounded bored. “They arrested Linda.”
Myron found Victoria Wilson in an attorney waiting area.
“How is she?”
“Fine,” Victoria replied. “I brought Chad home last night. That made her happy.”
“So where is Linda?”
“In a holding cell awaiting arraignment. Well see her in a few minutes.”
“What do they have?”
“Quite a bit, actually,” Victoria said. She sounded almost impressed. “First, they have the guard who saw her entering and leaving an otherwise abandoned golf course at the time of the murder. With the exception of Jack, nobody else was seen going in or out all night.”
“Doesn’t mean nobody did. It’s an awfully big area.”
“Very true. But from their standpoint it gives Linda opportunity. Second, they found hairs and fibers on Jack’s body and around the murder scene that preliminary tests link to Linda. Naturally, this one should be no problem to discredit. Jack is her husband; of course he’d have hair and fibers from her on his body. He could have spread them around the scene.”
“Plus she told us she went to the course to look for Jack,” Myron added.
“But we’re not telling them that.”
“Why not?”
“Because right now we are saying and admitting to nothing.”
Myron shrugged. Not important. “What else?”
“Jack owned a twenty-two-caliber handgun. The police found it in a wooded area between the Coldren residence and Merion last night.”
“It was just sitting out?”
“No. It was buried in fresh dirt. A metal detector picked it up.”
“They’re sure it’s Jack’s gun?”
She nodded. “The serial numbers match. The police ran an immediate ballistics test. It’s the murder weapon.”
Myron’s veins iced up.
“Fingerprints?” he asked.
Victoria Wilson shook her head. “Wiped clean.”
“Are they running a powder test on her?” The police run a test on the hands, see if there are any powder burns.
“It’ll take a few days,” Victoria said, “and it’ll probably be negative.”
“You had her scrub her hands?”
“And treat them, yes.”
“Then you think she did it.”
Her tone remained unruffled. “Please don’t say that.”
She was right. But it was starting to look bad. “Is there more?” he asked.
“The police found your tape machine still hooked up to the phone. They were obviously curious as to why the Coldrens found it necessary to tape all incoming calls.
”
“Did they find any tapes of the conversations with the kidnapper?”
“Just the one where the kidnapper refers to the Fong woman as a “chink bitch” and demands one hundred grand. And to answer your next two questions, no, we did not elaborate on the kidnapping and yes, they are pissed off.”
Myron pondered that for a moment. Something was not right. “That was the only tape they found?”
“That’s it.”
He frowned. “But if the machine was still hooked up, it should have taped the last call the kidnapper made to Jack. The one that got him to storm out of the house and head to Merion.”
Victoria Wilson looked at him steadily. “The police found no other tapes. Not in the house. Not on Jack’s body. Nowhere.”
Again the ice in the veins. The implication was obvious: The most reasonable explanation for there being no tape was that there was no call. Linda Coldren had made it up. The lack of a tape would have been viewed as a major contradiction if she had said anything to the cops. Fortunately for Linda, Victoria Wilson had never let her tell her story in the first place.
The woman was good.
“Can you get me a copy of the tape the police found?” he asked.
Victoria Wilson nodded. “There is still more,” she said.
Myron was almost afraid to hear it.
“Let’s take the severed finger for a moment,” she continued as though ordering it as an appetizer. “You found it in Linda’s car in a manila envelope.”
Myron nodded.
“The envelope is the type sold only at Staples—their brand, the number ten size. The writing was done by a red Flair pen, medium-point. Three weeks ago, Linda Coldren visited Staples. According to the receipt found at her house yesterday, she purchased numerous office supplies, including a box of Staples’ number ten manila envelopes and a red Flair medium-point pen.”
Myron could not believe what he was hearing.
“On the positive side, their handwriting analyst could not tell if the writing on the envelope came from Linda.”
But something else was dawning on Myron. Linda had waited around for him at Merion. The two of them had gone to the car together. They had found the finger together. The district attorney would pounce upon that story. Why had she waited for Myron? The answer, the DA would claim, was obvious: She needed a witness. She had planted the finger in her own car—she could certainly do that without drawing suspicion—and she needed a hapless dupe to be with her when she found it.
Enter Myron Bolitar, the dupe du jour.
But of course, Victoria Wilson had neatly arranged it so that the DA would never hear that story. Myron was Linda’s attorney. He could not tell. No one would ever know.
Yep, the woman was good—except for one thing.
“The severed finger,” Myron said. “That has to be the kicker, Victoria. Who is going to believe that a mother would cut off her own son’s finger?”
Victoria looked at her watch. “Let’s go talk to Linda.”
“No, hold up here. That’s the second time you blew this off. What aren’t you telling me?”
She slung her purse over her shoulder. “Come on.”
“Hey, I’m getting a little tired of getting jerked around here.”
Victoria Wilson nodded slowly, but she did not speak or stop walking. Myron followed her into a holding room. Linda Coldren was already there. She was decked out in a bright orange prison jumpsuit. Her hands were still manacled. She looked up at Myron through hollow eyes. There were no hellos or hugs or even pleasantries.
Without preamble, Victoria said, “Myron wants to know why I don’t think the severed finger helps us.”
Linda faced him. There was a sad smile on her face. “I guess that’s understandable.”
“What the hell is going on here?” Myron said. “I know you didn’t cut off your own son’s finger.”
The sad smile remained. “I didn’t do it,” Linda said. “That part is true.”
“What do you mean, that part?”
“You said I didn’t cut off my son’s finger,” she continued. “But Chad is not my son.”
36
Something in Myron’s head clicked again.
“I’m infertile,” Linda explained. She said the words with great ease, but the pain in her eyes was so raw and naked that Myron almost flinched. “I have this condition where my ovaries cannot produce eggs. But Jack still wanted a biological child.”
Myron spoke softly. “You hired a surrogate?”
Linda looked toward Victoria. “Yes,” she said. “Though it was not quite so aboveboard.”
“It was all done to the letter of the law,” Victoria interjected.
“You handled it for them?” Myron asked.
“I did the paperwork, yes. The adoption was completely legal.”
“We wanted to keep it a secret,” Linda said. “That’s why I took off from the tour so early. I went into seclusion. The birth mother was never even supposed to know who we were.”
Something else in his head went click. “But she found out.”
“Yes.”
Another click. “It’s Diane Hoffman, isn’t it?”
Linda was too exhausted to look surprised. “How did you know?”
“Just an educated guess.” Why else would Jack hire Diane Hoffman as his caddie? Why else would she have gotten upset at the way they were handling the kidnapping? “How did she find you?”
Victoria answered that one. “As I said, it was all done legally. With all the new disclosure laws, it wasn’t that hard to do.”
Another click. “That’s why you couldn’t divorce Jack. He was the biological parent. He’d have the upper hand in a custody battle.”
Linda slumped her shoulders and nodded.
“Does Chad know about all this?”
“No,” Linda said.
“At least, not to your knowledge,” Myron said. “What?”
“You don’t know for sure. Maybe he found out. Maybe Jack told him. Or Diane. Maybe that’s how this whole thing got started.”
Victoria crossed her arms. “I don’t see it, Myron. Suppose Chad did find out. How would that have led to his own kidnapping and his father’s murder?”
Myron shook his head. It was a good question. “I don’t know yet. I need time to think it through. Do the police know all this?”
“About the adoption? Yes.”
It was beginning to make sense now. “This gives the DA their motive. They’ll say that Jack’s suing for divorce worried Linda. That she killed him to keep her son.”
Victoria Wilson nodded. “And the fact that Linda is not the biological mother could play one of two ways: either she loved her son so much that she killed Jack to keep him—or because Chad was not her own flesh and blood, she could indeed be driven to cut off his finger.”
“Either way, finding the finger doesn’t help us.”
Victoria nodded. She did not say “I told you so,” but she might as well have.
“Can I say something?” It was Linda. They turned and looked at her.
“I didn’t love Jack anymore. I told you that straight out, Myron. I doubt I would have, if I’d been planning on killing him.”
Myron nodded. Made sense.
“But I do love my son—my son—more than life itself. The fact that it’s more believable that I’d maim him because I’m an adoptive mother rather than a biological one is sick and grotesque in the extreme. I love Chad as much as any mother could love a child.”
She stopped, her chest heaving. “I want you both to know that.”
“We know,” Victoria said. Then: “Let’s all sit down.”
When they were settled in their seats, Victoria continued to take charge. “I know it’s early, but I want to start thinking about reasonable doubt. Their case will have holes. I’ll be sure to exploit them. But I’d like to hear some alternative theories on what happened.”
“In other words,” Myron said, “some other suspects.”
Victoria caught something in his tone. “That’s exactly what I mean.”
“Well, you already have one ace in the hole, don’t you?”
Victoria nodded coolly. “I do.”
“Tad Crispin, right?”
This time, Linda did indeed look surprised. Victoria remained unfazed. “Yes, he’s a suspect.”
“The kid hired me last night,” Myron said. “Talking about him would be a conflict of interest.”
“Then we won’t talk about him.”
“I’m not sure that’s good enough.”
“Then you’ll have to dump him as a client,” Victoria said. “Linda hired you first. Your obligation must be to her. If you feel that there is a conflict, then you’ll have to call Mr. Crispin and tell him that you cannot represent him.”
Trapped. And she knew it.
“Let’s talk about other suspects,” Myron said.
Victoria nodded. Battle won. “Go ahead.”
“First off, Esme Fong.” Myron filled them in on all the reasons that she made a good suspect. Again Victoria looked sleepy; Linda looked semi-homicidal.
“She seduced my son?” Linda shouted. “The bitch came into my house and seduced my son?”
“Apparently so.”
“I can’t believe it. That’s why Chad was at that sleazy motel?”
“Yup—”
“Okay,” Victoria interrupted. “I like it. This Esme Fong has motive. She has means. She was one of the few people who knew where Chad was.”
“She also has an alibi for the killing,” Myron added.
“But not a great one. There must be other ways in and out of that hotel. She could have worn a disguise. She could have sneaked out when Miguel took a bathroom break. I like her. Who else?”
“Lloyd Rennart.”
“Who?”
“Jack’s former caddie,” Myron explained. “The one who helped throw the Open.”
Victoria frowned. “Why him?”
“Look at the timing. Jack returns to the site of his greatest failure and suddenly all this happens. It can’t be a coincidence. Firing Rennart ruined his life. He became a drunk. He killed his own wife in a car crash.”