by Play Dead
Tomorrow.
She realized that, like the corny lyrics to that song in Annie, tomorrow was only a day away. And yet it was a lifetime. The Judy who drank tea tomorrow would live in a different world from the one who sat at her table right now. Nothing would be the same. Her life and the lives of those she held dear would be eternally altered—for better or for worse, she could not say.
She sipped the tea, enjoying the feel of the hot liquid sliding down her throat. The hands on the kitchen clock kept trudging forward. Judy was not sure if they were moving too slowly or too quickly. She knew only that the future was coming. Her emotions darted from one extreme to another. One minute, the wait made her nearly burst with anticipation; the next, she dreaded the thought of hearing the inevitable knock on her door.
She picked the key ring off the table and held it front of her. Four keys hung off it: two for the car, one for the house, and one for the safety-deposit box that held her diary from nineteen sixty. Laura was about to learn all about the contents of that diary. She was about to discover the secrets that had been kept from her for so many years. And once she did, Judy prayed it would all be over.
But would it?
Judy took another sip of tea. It tasted bitter.
LAURA’S leg shook, but as usual she did not realize it.
Damn. How much longer before this plane lands? Anxiousness overwhelmed her. She found herself biting her nails, craving a cigarette, reading the boring airline magazine, memorizing the emergency exit locations on the plastic card, learning how to throw up into a paper bag in three different languages.
All of this for a lousy one-hour flight to Hamilton.
The leg continued to rock. The blue-haired woman seated next to Laura shot her an annoyed glance.
Laura stopped her leg. “Sorry,” she said.
The blue-haired woman said nothing.
Laura turned back to the airline magazine. She flipped mindlessly through the pages. There had been no reply to the numerous calls she had placed to Judy last night, save Judy’s voice on an answering machine. What had she meant last night? David had been dead for more than six months. Now, after all this time, Judy wanted to tell her something about his death. But what? What could her aunt possibly know about David’s death?
And the tone of her voice—so frightened. No, more than that. Petrified. And what was all the cloak-and-dagger stuff? What was so important that Aunt Judy could not say it over the telephone? What kind of photographs did she want to show Laura? What was all this talk of the past? Why did Aunt Judy want Laura to wait until seven p.m. today to see her? And how could all of this possibly be connected to David’s death in June?
Too many question. Too few answers.
The blue-haired woman coughed in undisguised irritation.
Laura looked down at her leg. Old Faithful was boogeying again. Her hand reached out and took hold of her knee. The leg slowed before coming to a complete stop.
“Sorry,” Laura offered again.
Ms. Bad Dye glared at her.
Laura returned the glare. Well, fuck you, too, lady.
She turned back to her magazine and continued not to read it. The same thoughts kept racing through her brain. Her suspicions about David’s death now traveled down a new and frightening avenue. Intuition steered her. No longer did things merely appear wrong—they felt wrong. There was a danger here—a danger more horrifying than Laura had previously imagined. She had arrived at a locked closet that held something terrible, something evil, something that threatened to destroy them all. She wanted to run away, to forget that she had ever found this locked door, but her feet were frozen to the floor. Without conscious thought, she reached for the dead bolt. She would soon unlock the closet door, turn the knob, peer inside. There was no turning back now. It was too late to stop.
What was behind the locked door? Laura did not know. In a few minutes the plane would land in Ithaca. A taxi would take her to Aunt Judy. Once there, the closet door would be opened.
THE killer read the sign:
COLGATE UNIVERSITY
The car turned tight and entered the campus. The campus was storybook small college. Buildings that would be covered with ivy if it were not for the snow that dotted the barren campus. The place reeked of liberal arts. Students here engaged in intellectual discussions on Hobbes and Locke, on Hegel and Marx, on Tennyson and Browning, on Potok and Bellow. During the day, they went to classes, met friends in the cafeteria, picked up mail at the PO. At night, they studied in the library, flirted during strategic study breaks, had a few beers at a frat house, engaged in whatever with members of the opposite sex.
To these undergrads, nothing existed outside of the campus. Somehow, the whole world with all its problems and complexities had shrunk down into the boundaries of this idyllic upstate campus. And life would never be this good again for most of them. They would never again have a chance to care so passionately about things that did not affect them. They would never again be able to enjoy a dress rehearsal for the real world.
The car slowed. There were very few students around right now. That was good. That was what the killer wanted.
I’m here. I can’t believe I’m here. I can’t believe what I am about to do.
The temperature had to be below zero with the windchill factor. Icicles hung off the gutters on the library. The snow had to be nearly a foot deep. The killer braked at a speed bump and looked out the passenger window for a brief moment. Without warning, the tears returned.
Why do I have to do this? Why? Isn’t there another answer?
But the killer knew that the answer was no. The past was using Judy as its outlet into the present, and so she had to be stopped. She had to be silenced before she could tell Laura what had happened thirty years ago.
Light flurries gently kissed the front windshield. Another left and the car entered the faculty-housing area. Up ahead, the killer could now see the small brick building inside of which Judy Simmons was sitting at the kitchen table, drinking Lipton tea.
LAURA hurried off the plane and across the small terminal. Had the flight been bumpy or smooth? Good or bad? Had they served food or drinks or nothing? Laura did not know the answer to any of those questions. She did not know what type of airplane she had been on, what airline she had used, what seat she had been in. The only memory that made its way past her murky haze was of a blue-haired woman dressed in Early Mayberry who resembled a waitress at a roadside diner. The woman had spent the flight alternating between practicing her look of disgust and snoring as she catnapped. A pleasant companion.
But Ms. Psychedelic Hairdo had been a welcome distraction from the agony of the unknown. Minutes on the plane had aged Laura like years. Her hair was a mess, her thin layer of makeup smeared on her face like so much finger paint. Laura did not realize any of this. She did not care. Laura had but one mission: get to Aunt Judy’s house. That was all she was concerned with right now.
Laura glanced at her watch. It was nearly six twenty and she wanted to be at Judy’s promptly at seven o’clock. She picked up her pace and realized that she was nearly sprinting. A sign said the taxi stand was on her right. She veered and the electric glass doors opened. Cold wind whipped her face and neck. Up ahead, she spotted a sole taxi waiting at the stand. She broke out into a full run now, heading in a straight line toward the yellow cab. Her legs pumped hard, lifting her feet up and over the snowbanks.
When she reached the car, her hand grabbed the door handle and pulled. Nothing happened. The door was locked. She lowered her head and squinted into the locked taxi. She was greeted with a now-familiar glare. Inside the taxi, taking off a heavy overcoat and jabbering with the driver while staring at Laura, was the blue-haired woman from the plane.
Laura stepped back as the taxi drove off.
THE killer parked the car in a wooded area behind Judy’s house. No one would be able to see it there. Entering and exiting without being seen was very important. No witnesses. No one must see a thing.
Stop that shaking. This is no time to go soft. Brace yourself. Steady yourself. Don’t be weak. Not now. This is too important. It has to be done.
Through the woods, the killer could make out the brick building where Judy lived. The house was a hundred yards away, then fifty, then twenty. One foot stepped; the other messed up the tracks. No use in letting the police see the shoe size in a snowprint.
A few seconds later, the killer was in the backyard. The container of kerosene was placed behind a garbage can. But just for the moment. Soon the kerosene would help light Judy’s house into a bonfire of death.
The killer moved toward the back door and prepared to knock. A quick glance in a window revealed Judy having a cup of tea in the kitchen.
It was to be the last cup of tea Judy would ever have.
JUDY looked up sharply from the kitchen table. She could hear footsteps trudging through the deep snow outside of her window. Someone was outside in the backyard. Someone was walking around back there. Someone was heading toward her back door.
A chill glided through her. She sat up straight, wondering why anybody would come through the back when the front path was cleanly shoveled. No one ever used her back door. The only things back there were woods and shrubs and now snow.
Unease fell over her. She glanced at the clock: six forty-five p.m. It could be Laura or, more probably, Mark. Mark would not want to be seen coming here. He would not want anyone to make the connection between Judy and himself.
The knock on the door startled her. It had to be Mark Seidman, she thought now, her pulse racing fast. She grabbed the empty cup of tea and stood. She put the cup in the sink as she made her way to the back door.
Judy’s hand reached up and pulled away the chain lock. She grabbed the knob and turned it. Slowly, the door swung open. When Judy looked out, a face in front of her smiled brightly.
“Hello, Judy.”
“SAY, you’re that model, aren’t you? Laura Ayars, right?”
It had taken Laura another ten minutes to dig up a taxi. “Yes. How much longer until we get there?”
The driver let go a laugh. “Laura Ayars in my cab. My wife will never believe it. I bought your swimsuit calendar one year.”
“Great. Can we go any faster?”
He shook his head. “I’d like to. I mean, that way I can get more fares. More fares means more money, you know? And I like driving fast. I mean, I’m no New York City cabbie. They’re crazy. Have you ever been in a New York taxi?”
“Yes.”
“Well, then, you know what I mean. They’re crazy. But back to your question. I’d like to go faster. I really would, but I already got two speeding tickets this month. Can you believe that, Laura? Can I call you Laura?”
“Please do.”
“Two speeding tickets, Laura. Cops around here have nothing better to do than protect sheep from college pranks and give a guy trying to make an honest buck a hard time. But hell, they don’t bother me much. The problem, Laura, is the snow and ice. I took a turn too quickly around here last year and ended up in a ditch. No kidding. I must have driven on that stretch of road a million times, knew it better than the back of my hand. But this time, it was a coat of ice. Whoosh, the car went right over… .”
Laura tuned him out. She watched out the window as the car traveled along a seemingly empty road. Only occasionally did another car go past them in the opposite direction. There were no vehicles in front or behind them—just snow piled high on the side of the road.
The land was still, peaceful, quiet. Laura soaked in the tranquillity. She had always liked visiting this area. Her mind and body let the surroundings work on her tense muscles. Yes, it was a beautiful place to visit for a few days. Stay longer than that and you start going stir-crazy. Solitude was nice every once in a while, but as a way of life? Uh-uh. Not for her.
“Faculty housing, right?”
“Right,” Laura said.
The taxi pulled onto the campus grounds and headed toward the left. Laura looked around the still campus, her thoughts on David. She couldn’t help but feel that all of this was coming to an end, that she would soon know what had really happened to David in Australia. And then what? She would be alone. David would still be gone and Laura would be left with no potent distraction. But it was better not to think too far ahead, better not to consider the future.
The taxi slowed to a stop. “We’re here,” the driver said cheerily.
Laura looked out at Judy’s small home. There was no movement anywhere in sight. She quickly paid the driver and slipped her arms into the sleeves of her coat. She left the comfort of the taxi’s heater and headed into the cold of northern New York. The taxi drove off as she headed up the path.
Her hands dove into her pockets, her arms huddling against her sides in order to keep warm. As she moved closer to the house, she still saw no movement. One hand came out of the pocket just long enough for Laura to catch a glimpse of her watch.
Seven o’clock on the button.
When she reached the door, Laura rang the doorbell. She could hear the chime echo through the small dwelling before fading away into silence. There were no further sounds. She tried the doorbell again, waiting anxiously to hear footsteps heading her way.
No dice.
She tried the bell one more time, waited, but still no one came toward the door. She heard nothing—
No. That was not exactly true. She heard a shuffling noise.
“Aunt Judy?” she shouted.
No answer. No sounds at all. The shuffling noise, if there had indeed been a shuffling noise, was now gone. Laura reached forward and tried the door. The knob turned easily in her hand. The door was unlocked.
Two things occurred simultaneously as Laura pushed open the door and walked into Judy’s house: the killer sneaked out the back, and Laura detected the not so unpleasant odor of kerosene.
24
“WELL, well, what have we got here?”
“Shit! It’s the sheriff!”
Graham Rowe approached the two youths. It had not taken him long to find them. Old Mrs. Kelcher had pinpointed the spot on Route 7 where the eggs had first catapulted toward her car. Right away he knew the perpetrators of said offense had to be hiding on top of Wreck’s Pointe. Pain in the ass getting the car up here. No one ever drove the old unpaved road to Wreck’s Pointe, but if the good folks of Palm’s Cove thought that Sheriff Graham Rowe was about to scale the side of a mountain to catch a couple of punks chucking eggs, they had another think coming. “Throwing eggs at passing cars, boys?”
The taller of the two boys stood. An egg was still in his hand. “We didn’t mean no harm, Sheriff Rowe.”
“Well, you caused it, Tommy. Aren’t you boys a little old to still be into this kiddie crap?”
Both boys—brothers actually—lowered their heads.
“What’s your dad going to say about this? Tommy? Josh?”
Neither spoke.
Graham took a step toward them. He readied himself for his standard lecture designed for the chronic mischief maker—his stern man-to-punk chat, so to speak—when the radio in his squad car squawked his name. Graham sighed heavily. “Get out of here, the both of you. If I catch either of you causing trouble again, I’m going to stick you in a cage with a hungry crocodile. You understand?”
“Yes, sir, Sheriff.”
“Yes, Sheriff.”
“Good. Now get lost.”
The brothers ran down the hill and out of sight.
Graham heard the radio shriek his name again. Damn radio was a piece of crap. Had more static than a cheap sweater rubbed on an even cheaper carpet. Graham half sprinted toward the car and picked up the microphone. “Sheriff Rowe here. What’s up?”
His deputy’s voice was barely intelligible through the blown speaker. “Mrs. Cassler from the Pacific International Hotel called for you.”
“And?”
“And she wants you over there right away.”
“What’s up?”
“She has the passport cards you were looking for.”
Graham had already started his car. Now he turned on his siren and slammed his foot on the gas pedal. “Tell her I’m on my way.”
THE killer stood over Judy’s still body. The first murder weapon had been a gun. The second, a sharp blade. Now the third weapon was … fire.
Judy’s breathing came steadily. Her eyes were closed. She almost looked as though she were sleeping, her chest rising and falling as though in heavy slumber. But Judy’s body was still—oh, so still. A small pool of blood had formed on the floor near the back of her skull, where a bronze bust of Keats had made impact. Such violence from such a nonviolent soul—it saddened the killer.
I have to move fast, have to get rid of all the evidence. How? How do I make sure no one reads any of Judy’s diaries or sees any of her old photographs? How do I silence her forever?
The answer was almost too simple.
Fire.
Highly inflammable kerosene had already been poured throughout the tiny study and over Judy’s body. Loose papers were strategically laid about. Not too much kerosene and not too many papers. So far, so good, but there was no reason to get too cocky.
After the killer had entered the house, everything had gone better than hoped. Judy had led them both down a thin corridor filled with poster prints by Chagall and Dali and even McKnight. When they reached the end of the hallway and stepped into the cluttered study, Judy made a key error.
She turned her back.
That was all the killer needed. The bust of Keats sat on its own podium by the study door. The bronze likeness was surprisingly heavy and a struggle to lift, but once the killer had it in the air, it swung down easily upon the back of Judy’s head, landing with a sickening thud. Her body folded before crumbling to the ground.