Harlan Coben

by Play Dead

  22

  JUDY paced the living room of her one-level home. She had lived in campus housing for more than a decade now and she liked it well enough. It was small but there was still a bedroom, a living room, a kitchen, and an office—plenty of space for her. More rooms would have just meant more places to store her mess.

  Her mind kept racing through the events of the previous night at the Boston Garden. She would think it over, mentally rewind, review what she had seen and heard, try to draw conclusions. Mark Seidman’s first jump shot had set her mind in a whirling, terrifying spin and now it would not stop. Could it be? Could Mark Seidman have pulled it off? It seemed incredible to her, but when she thought the whole scenario through, only one conclusion made sense.

  Judy reached into her wallet and grabbed the familiar old photograph. The picture trembled in her hand. She stared at the image of a young, glowing Judy in an embrace with a somewhat older man. The black-and-white photograph had been taken after a faculty softball game on a bright, beautiful Chicago afternoon in nineteen sixty. The older man still held the bat in his free hand. His baseball cap was tilted to the side, a smile plastered across his handsome face.

  The older man was David’s father.

  Judy continued to stare, remembering the very moment the photograph had been snapped. She and Sinclair had known each other for about two months on that sunny day and both of them were in love. Neither one of them had planned it to happen that way. Neither one of them had wanted to hurt anybody. But there had been an instant chemistry there—the kind of reaction that could make a levelheaded, proper young woman like Judy fall for a married man.

  Yes, Judy had heard about Sinclair’s reputation as a major womanizer. Yes, she had known that this was not his first experience with adultery, but all the others had been nothing more than empty-headed campus beauties he could have fun with and dispense with quickly. Judy was different. While attractive enough, she was certainly no head turner, and more to the point, their affair was now four months old. Sinclair Baskin loved her, she knew, and he was going to get divorced. Yes, it would be messy. No, her parents would not understand or be supportive at first. But love conquered all, right? What could be stronger than love?

  As it turned out, love proved no match for jealousy, beauty, deceit, and rage.

  The affair had been tough on Sinclair, too. He had a ten-year-old boy and an infant son, both of whom he loved dearly. Judy smiled sadly. Little, mischievous Stan was now forty years old. The little baby boy named David had grown up to be a wonderful young man and a sports hero. How proud Sinclair would have been of David. How crushed he would have been when David drowned… .

  But of course, that would never have happened. If Sinclair were here, David would be, too.

  Judy continued to gaze at the familiar photograph. Her thoughts glided easily from the past to the present. Such a thin line separated Boston in nineteen eighty-nine from Chicago in nineteen sixty. Her beautiful niece had also loved a Baskin man. David Baskin. Sinclair’s baby boy. Laura had put her whole life into loving him. Her dreams, her hopes, her love, her life—all gone now. Gone.

  But there were major differences between Judy’s tragedy and Laura’s. For one, David had loved Laura with everything he had, no questions asked. In the end, Judy could not say the same thing about Sinclair. But more important, Laura was completely blameless in the death of the man she loved.

  Judy was not.

  Damn you, Sinclair Baskin. Why did you make that one dreaded mistake? And why was I so stupid? Why did I react so impulsively and strike without thinking? Everything was perfect, you idiot. Perfect.

  Gone. Dead. Over. For Judy, there was nothing left. But what about Laura?

  Judy’s hand reached for the telephone. There still might be hope for Laura. She grabbed the receiver, picked it up, dialed.

  Her decision was made.

  WHEN practice ended, Mark Seidman silently showered and dressed. The locker room was quiet, the players still somber from the previous night’s ceremony. No tape deck blasted the latest long-play single from Chaka Khan or Samantha Fox. There was little conversation going on, which made it easier for Mark to avoid conversing with his teammates. In the past, Mark had always enjoyed the camaraderie of his teammates. He recognized that there was a direct correlation between winning basketball games and having fun. When basketball became merely a job, the level of play always dropped off.

  All that being said, Mark could not get himself to warm up to his teammates, nor did they accept him with open arms. It bothered him, and yet he knew that getting friendly with any of them could be catastrophic. Earl was not stupid. Neither was Timmy or Mac or Johnny. While he doubted that they could ever put the whole thing together, the risk was still too great.

  He grabbed his gym bag and headed toward the exit. As he passed by Earl’s locker, he heard, “See you tomorrow, Mark.”

  Earl had barely spoken a word to him all season. “Yeah,” Mark said unsurely, “see you tomorrow, Earl.”

  “Nice game last night.”

  Mark swallowed. “You, too,”

  They both stood uncomfortably. With an uneasy smile, Mark turned away. He pushed the door open and vanished into the lobby.

  One of the towel boys ran after him. “Mark?”

  He turned. “Yes?”

  “There’s a telephone call for you.”

  “Tell whoever it is I’m not here.”

  “She said it’s urgent.”

  “She?”

  The boy nodded. “She said you would know her. Judy Simmons.”

  Mark felt something rip through his stomach.

  “You all right, Mark?”

  He nodded, his body numb. “I’m fine,” he said. “I’ll take the call in room five.”

  Mark tried to remain calm, composed, unruffled.

  He reached room five, closed the door for privacy, and picked up the phone.

  “Hello?”

  “Mr. Seidman?”

  “Yes?”

  “This is Judy Simmons. We met last night.”

  His mouth felt incredibly dry. “Yes, of course. Is there something I can do for you, Miss Simmons?”

  “How do you know I’m not married?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “You just called me ‘Miss.’ How do you know I’m not married?”

  Mark closed his eyes. Every word had to be watched before it passed his lips. “I … I noticed last night that you weren’t wearing a wedding band.”

  She paused as if she were mulling over his explanation. “I see.”

  “You said it was urgent.”

  “It is,” she said. “Do you mind if I call you Mark?”

  “Please do.”

  “Good,” Judy replied. She hesitated for a brief moment before speaking again. “Do you mind if I call you David?”

  Her words hit him like a powerful blow. Just keep cool, Mark. Just keep cool. “Is this some kind of joke?”

  “No.”

  “Look, I don’t know what this is all about, but I do not appreciate your calling me under the pretense of an emergency—”

  “Don’t play games with me, David,” she interrupted. “That is your real name, isn’t it? David Baskin.”

  “No, it is not,” he shot back confidently. But he was scared—oh, so scared. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, and frankly, I don’t care. I’m sick of hearing the man’s name already. I know that your family has suffered a tragedy, Miss Simmons, and I know that my jump shot is similar to his. But I am Mark Seidman, not David Baskin. Do you hear me? I am not your niece’s dead husband.”

  “Wait a sec—”

  “No, you wait a second. Tragedies happen, Miss Simmons. They are indiscriminate and cruel. I know that the death of a man as young and healthy as David Baskin is hard for everyone to accept. The press and fans can’t even accept it. They call me White Lightning II, as if I were David reincarnated. I’m sick of it—do you hear me? Do yourself a favor. Accept the truth and
help your family do the same. David Baskin is dead. I happened to replace him on the basketball court. That’s all.”

  There was a long silence before Judy spoke again. “You don’t understand anything, do you?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean that you think you know what you’re doing, but you don’t. There are things about this whole situation that have been kept from you.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking—”

  “Fine, Mr. Seidman, or whatever your name is. If you want to continue your strategy of feigning ignorance, I am truly left with no defense. But if you want to learn what really happened thirty years ago, if you ever want to save Laura from unspeakable cruelty, come up to Colgate tomorrow evening at seven. I’ll explain everything to you then. After you listen to what I have to say, I will live with whatever decision you make. I will never speak of this again. But if you do not come, I am left with no choice but to find another way of handling this. You may not like what I come up with.”

  Mark swallowed hard. A tear came to his eye.

  “Tomorrow night, Mr. Seidman. Seven p.m.”

  She hung up. Mark quietly replaced the receiver and moved toward the car waiting for him outside. He opened the passenger door and got in. “I just got a call from Judy Simmons.”

  T.C.’s reaction was swift and predictable. “What did she say?”

  “She thinks I’m David Baskin. She says Baskin was not told the whole truth.”

  “Not told the truth? What the hell does that mean?”

  “I’m not sure. She said it had to do with what happened thirty years ago.”

  T.C. bit off the end of a cigar. “Interesting, no?”

  Mark shrugged. “Depends on what she means.”

  “Could she be right?” T.C. asked. “Could Baskin have been deceived?”

  “You’re the detective. You tell me. I mean, I guess it’s possible. But how? And, more important, why? What would have been gained?”

  “I don’t know,” T.C. agreed, “but she really has no idea what Baskin knew, does she?”

  “Meaning?”

  “Meaning she might think Baskin didn’t know the whole story when in fact he did.”

  The car pulled out of the parking lot. Mark stared out the side window. “She also said that if I ever wanted to save Laura from what she called unspeakable cruelty, I should go to Colgate tomorrow night.”

  “What else did she say?”

  “That if I did not go, she would find another way of handling it.”

  “She said that?”

  Mark nodded.

  T.C. gripped the wheel firmly, his face tightening. “Well, we certainly can’t let her do that, now, can we?”

  RIIIIING. Riiiiing. Wake up, Stan! Time to call your daddy’s murderer!

  “Ooooooh, my fuckin’ head.”

  Stan rolled over onto his back. What a goddamn hangover. Just like the good old days. His hand reached out, smacked the alarm clock, and pulled it toward him.

  One p.m.

  He put the clock back onto the night table. Breathing through his nose hurt like a son of a bitch. It was probably broken. He’d have to get it taken care of at the hospital. Later. He had things to do now.

  He stood and walked over to the mirror. His face looked like shit. Both his eyes were black from the broken nose, and his complexion was white from vomiting up a storm last night. Bits and pieces of the incident in the bathroom came to him, but it was all so fuzzy. A man jumps him, dunks his head in a toilet bowl till he nearly drowns him, then knocks him out. Strange but true. And what had the guy said to him? Something about keeping away from “her.” He assumed “her” meant Laura.

  Stan wondered if Laura could have hired the guy. Doubtful. The most obvious suspect was T.C., but that was not T.C.’s voice Stan heard whispering in his ear.

  His mind replayed his conversation with Laura, wondering for the zilllionth time how he could have been so stupid. Why create an adversary in a woman as powerful as Laura? Why not just forget about her and go on? He was happy with Gloria. He was going to have all the money he wanted. So why screw it all up? Why did he always need to mess up his life?

  But, alas, that was his way. Stan always managed to keep one foot firmly placed in dung. He would try like hell to pull it out. He would pull and tug, straining with everything he had. His foot would slowly come loose from the filth and lift in the air, and then Stan would notice that his other foot was now firmly entrenched in another pile of dung.

  Stan headed into the den and collapsed on the couch. That was enough life analysis for one morning, thank you. He sat down by the phone and rubbed his hands together nervously. A thin film of sweat coated his body.

  It was time to place that little call.

  For a brief moment, he felt repulsion at what he was about to do. How could he just let the murder of his father slide? How could he allow himself to be bought off by his father’s killer? His father had been one of the very few people in this world who had truly loved him. Maybe the only one.

  Stan reached for the bottle of vodka and poured himself a healthy shot. Better not to think about it like that. Better to consider the phone call a normal business transaction, a very profitable one. Yes, that was best way to look at it.

  He went back into the bathroom, shaved, showered, sprinkled on a few dabs of Old Spice, and threw on a sweatsuit. After he finished a glass of fresh squeezed orange juice (with a touch of vodka for taste), he picked up the phone and called his father’s murderer.

  JUDY hung up the phone on Mark Seidman and renewed her pacing. What next? The answer was pretty clear: call the one person in the world who would not think she was crazy—the one person who would understand her suspicions. And it just so happened that that one person loved Laura more than life itself: James.

  She and James had spoken a few times once they had realized that David’s death had been no accident, that he had in all likelihood committed suicide. They had even considered the possibility that Mary was somehow responsible for the drowning. Now Judy realized that they had only skimmed the surface in their skepticism over David’s “accidental” death. The rumblings underneath were just beginning to show. It scared Judy and it brought her hope. She knew that James would feel the same, but the truth was that they both loved Laura and wanted what was best for her. James might even figure out a way of salvaging the situation without bringing back the past.

  Maybe. But not likely.

  “Let me speak to Dr. Ayars, please. This is his sister-in-law.”

  “Please hold.”

  A moment later, James’s voice came through. “Judy?”

  So authoritative, so controlled—it had been part of the reason she had fallen for him all those years ago. Her heart had been brutally crushed when she lost him to Mary, though she never let it show. She’d stepped aside gracefully as poor, sweet Judy had always done, stepped out of her leading role as fiancée and into the bit part of Mary’s maid of honor. She met Sinclair Baskin a few months after losing James. He mended her heart to the stage where she was able to forget all about Mary’s husband.

  A few months later, her heart was crushed again, never to recover.

  “I need to speak to you,” she said. “Are you alone?”

  “Yes. What is it?”

  She took a deep breath, not really sure how to begin. “Did you notice anything strange at the game last night?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean anything unusual.”

  “I’ve got a dozen patients in the waiting room, Judy. Can we please stop playing cat-and-mouse?”

  Again she wondered what to say. “Did you notice Mark Seidman?”

  “The rookie? Of course. Brilliant player.”

  “And his jump shot?”

  “What about it?”

  “Didn’t it look familiar?”

  “It was like David’s. So what? What are you getting at—?” He stopped speaking. His mouth dropped open. When he was finally
able to talk again, his words came softly. “You don’t mean …”

  “I do.”

  “But how? It makes no sense.”

  “It makes perfect sense. Think about it a second. Didn’t you call me after that meeting with David’s attorney and say that you were no longer sure David had committed suicide?”

  “Yes,” James agreed, “but that was because his money was missing. I thought there was a remote possibility that someone had murdered him to get it.”

  “Think it through again, James. Wouldn’t a murder be a terribly strange coincidence?”

  “Maybe,” James allowed, “but what you’re suggesting is preposterous.”

  “Is it? Or is it the only answer that completely fits?”

  “How could David have possibly pulled it off?”

  “Not easily, I assure you. He would have needed help. Probably from T.C.—”

  “Who was the first one to get over to Australia when Laura discovered that David was missing,” James added.

  “Exactly.”

  “But we have to admit it’s a pretty wild theory, Judy. And that’s all it is right now: theory. There’s not one shred of proof. We can’t just go off half-cocked on a supposition. Think of the repercussions involved.”

  “I know all about the repercussions.”

  “Then what do you think we should do?”

  Judy sighed. As usual, James was right. In the end, this was only another in a series of crazy hypotheses by a frustrated English teacher. “We’ll move slowly, but it has to be investigated.”

  “The sooner, the better,” James said. “This can’t wait. I’ll go to the bank and try to track down the missing money.”

  “Good.”

  Pause. “Have you spoken to Mary?” he asked.

  “Are you joking? Who knows how she’d react?”

  “I agree. Good-bye, Judy.”

  “Good luck, James. Let me know what you find out.”

  GRAHAM Rowe scanned the telephone bill. He could have gotten the bill from the phone company, but if he had made that request, the government might just have wanted to find out what he was investigating. And if something big was going on, if Dr. Bivelli and the Aussie feds were working with this T.C. fella, poking his nose where it didn’t belong could prove hazardous to his health.