Harlan Coben

by Play Dead

  “Not bad.”

  Gloria wrung her hands. “I can’t believe this. Aunt Judy dead. It’s so horrible. Mom and Dad are in shock.”

  “I know,” Laura said. “They were in here a little while ago.”

  “Such a terrible accident,” Serita added.

  “No accident.”

  Laura’s sister and best friend stared at her. “What did you say?”

  “It was no accident,” Laura repeated. “Aunt Judy was murdered.”

  “Are you sure?” Serita asked.

  “Arson. The house was doused with kerosene, and Judy had been knocked unconscious.”

  “But who would do such a thing?”

  Laura knew it was unsafe to involve anyone else in this, but her feelings of loneliness and despair made her reach out. She had to confide in someone. “You have to promise me you won’t say a word about this to anyone. Not one word. It could be a matter of life and death.”

  “Not a word,” Serita replied while Gloria nodded her head in agreement.

  “I don’t know who killed Aunt Judy, but take a look at this.”

  Laura reached into her bag and pulled out the old black-and-white photograph. She handed it to Gloria, who looked at it and then passed it on to Serita.

  “I don’t get it,” Gloria said. “It’s an old picture of Aunt Judy but who’s the guy?”

  “Any guesses, Serita?”

  “He looks familiar… .”

  “Like David … or maybe Stan?”

  “A little, I guess.”

  “What are you getting at?” Gloria asked.

  “The man in the photograph is Sinclair Baskin. Stan and David’s father.”

  Gloria gasped. She remembered Stan’s words about his father’s death and she began to shake.

  “I don’t get it,” Serita said. “What does this have to do with Judy’s death?”

  “I don’t know yet. But take a look at them. This is no casual pose.”

  “No,” Serita agreed, “they definitely seem fond of each other.”

  “And take a look at that banner in the background. Brinlen College nineteen sixty. That’s where Sinclair Baskin taught. And nineteen sixty—that’s the year he died.”

  Serita continued to stare at the picture. “I still don’t get it. So your aunt might have had an affair with David’s father before he died in nineteen sixty. What does that have to do with the fire today?”

  “I haven’t figured out the connection yet, but I know one exists. I have to go to Chicago and find it.”

  “Chicago? Why Chicago?”

  “Brinlen College is in Chicago. My mother and Aunt Judy were raised there.”

  Gloria finally spoke, her words coming from a fog. “We used to live there, Laura, before you were born.”

  “I know. There has to be a connection somehow. There has to be a link between Judy’s murder and Sinclair Baskin’s suicide.”

  Gloria nearly screamed. She put her hand in her mouth, her teeth biting down hard upon her tender skin. A small shriek made its way past her lips.

  “What is it, Gloria? What’s the matter?”

  Gloria took her hand away. She remembered what Stan had told her just a few nights ago, just after she had woken from her nightmare. Her eyes bounced about the room as though looking for a place to hide. “I … I can’t say.”

  Laura sat up and grabbed her sister’s shoulders. “This is important, Gloria. Whoever killed Judy may have killed David, too.”

  “Wha—Killed David? But he drowned.”

  “Maybe. Maybe not. Tell me what you know.”

  “But I promised.”

  “Promised who?”

  “Stan. I promised him I wouldn’t say anything.”

  “You have to tell me, Gloria. You could be in danger. Stan could be in danger.”

  “I don’t know… .”

  Laura began to shake her. “Tell me. Tell me.”

  Serita stepped in and disengaged the two sisters. “Just relax a second, Laura.”

  Laura let go and lay back down. “I can’t relax. The killer is still out there.”

  “You’re not making any sense, girl. Pictures from thirty years ago. Murderers running around. A suicide that’s thirty years old—”

  “Not a suicide!” Gloria shouted.

  Laura and Serita spun toward Gloria’s voice. She was huddled in a corner, her whole body quivering and quaking as though she were caught in the grip of a fever. “He didn’t commit suicide,” Gloria said.

  Laura could not believe what she was hearing. “What are you talking about? Of course he committed suicide.”

  Gloria shook her head violently. “He was murdered. Sinclair Baskin was murdered.”

  “What?”

  “Stan was hiding behind the couch in his father’s office. He was only ten years old but he saw the whole thing. Somebody murdered Sinclair Baskin.”

  “But … ?” Laura’s mouth fell open. She stared dumbstruck. “My God,” she finally managed. “Does Stan know who did it?”

  “No. He didn’t recognize the killer. But he remembers the face… .”

  Laura fell back on the bed. Another piece of the puzzle had been handed to her and once again, that piece did not seem to fit. Murdered. Sinclair Baskin. David. Judy. Something had happened thirty years ago—something horrible and evil, something that did not end with the passing of a decade or two. Judy’s haunting words came back to her, tearing at her heart with sharpened claws.

  “… There are things that you know nothing about. Things that happened many years ago … sometimes the past can overlap with the present. That was what happened with David… .”

  “Serita?”

  “Yeah?”

  There was only one way to find the answer to what happened so many years ago, to what happened to David. “Would you do me a favor?”

  “Sure.”

  “Don’t tell my folks or the doctor.”

  “I won’t.”

  “Can you get me a plane ticket to Chicago?”

  26

  MARK burst through the door. His breathing was uneven, his chest hitching from the mere effort.

  “What the hell happened to you?” T.C. asked. “You’re a goddamn mess.”

  “Get me something to drink. A vodka, anything.”

  “You don’t drink.”

  He collapsed into a chair. “I do now.”

  T.C. grabbed two cans of Budweiser and tossed one to Mark. “It’s the best I can do. Jesus, Mark, your clothes are burned.”

  Mark ripped open the can of beer and chugged half of it.

  “You want to tell me what happened?”

  Mark stood, the can of beer nearly being crushed by his grip. His words came fast, his pitch unsteady. “I got to Judy Simmons’s house at seven o’clock, just like she said. I parked my car someplace off campus and walked about a mile before I spotted Judy’s house. Then …”

  “Then?”

  He swallowed. “A taxi pulled up in front of the house. Laura got out of it.”

  “Oh, shit.”

  “I ducked behind a tree. It didn’t take a genius to figure out what Judy was up to. She must have figured—”

  “That if she put you and Laura together,” T.C. finished, “the sparks would really fly.”

  Mark chuckled sadly.

  “What’s so funny?” T.C. asked.

  “Nothing is funny,” Mark answered. “Just ironic.”

  “Huh?”

  “You’ll see. Anyway, I’m hiding behind this tree, watching Laura …” He stopped talking, his mind drifting back to the memory. Laura. His eyes had crawled over every inch of her with a yearning so great, he was sure he would die. Just seeing her again, staring at her lovely face turned red from the cold, watching her walk up the path, made his stomach ache with a sense of loss.

  “Mark?”

  “Sorry,” he said softly. He took a deep breath and continued. “Laura knocked on the door and waited. No one answered. She called Judy’s name. Still
nothing. So she tried the lock and opened the door. She went into the house.”

  “What did you do?”

  Mark looked away. “I just stood there frozen in place. I don’t know why. I should have just turned and left. But I couldn’t. I stared and stared—daydreaming, I guess—until I saw smoke.”

  “Smoke?”

  “A fire broke out.”

  “What?”

  Mark nodded as if to reconfirm his own words. “The smoke started to billow out of the cracks in the doors and windows. It couldn’t have happened more than five minutes after Laura entered.”

  “What did you do?”

  “I ran into the house. What a goddamn mess. It was unbelievable. Flames were crawling up the walls.”

  “Jesus.”

  “All I could think about was Laura. Laura is trapped somewhere in here, my mind kept repeating like a parakeet, trapped in the middle of this deadly blaze. Nothing else mattered. It was weird. The fire became nothing more than a diversion to me. I scrambled around desperately, hoping against hope that Laura was still alive.”

  “Don’t tell me—”

  Mark shook his head. “I found her and pulled her out. The fire hadn’t reached her yet. She was unconscious, so I called nine one one and stayed with her until I heard the sirens. I spoke to the hospital a little while later. She’ll be okay.”

  “Thank God.”

  Mark swallowed hard. When he had lifted Laura, when he had taken her in his arms, he had wanted so much to never let go, to protect her, to tell her everything was going to be okay. Tears found their way into his eyes before he forced them back down. “The same,” Mark continued slowly, “cannot be said about Judy. She’s dead, T.C.”

  T.C. shook his head. “I’m sorry, Mark. I know she meant a lot to you.”

  “Fires don’t burn that fast, do they, T.C.? Somebody set that fire deliberately. Somebody murdered Judy Simmons.”

  “You can’t be sure of that.”

  “I want to find that somebody, T.C. I want to nail that son of a bitch to the wall.”

  “Or daughter of a bitch.”

  “Huh?”

  “Think about it a second. Who would want to silence Judy?”

  “You’re not suggesting …”

  T.C. shrugged. “Do you remember what Judy said to you on the phone?”

  Mark thought for a moment. “She wasn’t making much sense. She said something about not knowing what I was doing, about not knowing the whole story.”

  T.C. shrugged. “Maybe,” he concluded, “we don’t.”

  “MRS. Klenke will be with you in a moment.”

  “Thank you,” Laura said. She readjusted herself in the seat. The pain from the burns was greater than she had anticipated. Every move felt like sandpaper rubbing against a fresh wound. In the hospital they had given her painkillers. She had no idea of how potent they were. Laura had managed to secure some codeine from a drugstore, but it was far from an adequate substitute.

  Laura looked at her watch. It took her a good portion of the night to convince Serita and Gloria to help her get to Chicago. They agreed reluctantly in the end, probably because they were afraid she would try to get there no matter what they did.

  They were probably right.

  T.C., the crafty son of a bitch, would be proud of her in an odd sort of way. She had spent most of the morning in her hospital bed playing detective. She called Brinlen College, got in touch with various professors and staff members, and asked about Sinclair Baskin. No one knew very much about him. Very few professors were left from nineteen sixty.

  But one call paid off.

  “Have you spoken to Mrs. Klenke?” an older professor had asked her.

  “No. Who is she?”

  “Well, back then, she was Miss Engle. She was Sinclair Baskin’s personal secretary, and if rumor had it correctly, the word to be emphasized is ‘personal.’ Get my meaning?”

  The college office still had her name and phone number on file. Laura called up and persuaded Mrs. Diana Klenke to see her. Now, just a few hours later, Laura was sitting in the woman’s den.

  “Mrs. Baskin?”

  Laura turned toward Mrs. Klenke’s voice. She had learned that Diana Klenke had been twenty-seven years old in nineteen sixty. That made her fifty-seven now, but she was still something to behold. Her hair had gone gray but her bone structure and smile made her more than just dazzling. She was very tall and lithe, elegantly dressed in a black Svengali suit. Her every move was graceful and subdued.

  “Call me Laura.”

  “Only if you’ll call me Diana.”

  “Okay, Diana.”

  Diana Klenke’s smile turned gentle as she looked at the younger woman in front of her. “My goodness, you’re stunning. Pictures do not do you justice, Laura.”

  “Thank you,” she replied. Laura wanted very much to return the compliment, but whenever she had in the past, people thought she sounded phony and somewhat patronizing.

  “Would you like something to drink?”

  “No, thank you.”

  “Anything at all?”

  “Thank you, no.”

  Diana Klenke sat on the plush chair next to Laura. The room was beautiful and immaculately kept by what had to be a large staff of servants. The Victorian mansion must have held twenty-five rooms, each done in a style that would have made the Palace of Versailles envious. “How was your trip?”

  “Fine,” Laura replied. “You have a beautiful home, Diana.”

  Diana Klenke smiled as she nodded. “My husband loved this house. It was his pride and joy. He died ten years ago. Killed in a car crash on his way home from the airport. As you might have guessed, he was a very wealthy man and now”—she paused, laughing lightly—“I am a very wealthy widow.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be. We were never all that close. Besides, I have the older-man market cornered. They all want my money.”

  “I’m sure that’s not true.”

  Diana shrugged. “No matter. What can I do for you, Laura? You mentioned on the phone something about Sinclair?”

  “Yes.”

  “I read about your husband’s tragic death. So damn sad. He was so young. Sometimes I think there must be a curse on the Baskin men.”

  “It seems so,” Laura agreed.

  “So what can I help you with?”

  Laura’s leg shook. It would do no good to try to stop it. The leg would only start up again. She leaned forward. Pain shot through the burns on her back as she reached into her purse. “Will you take a look at this photograph?”

  Diana Klenke took out a pair of reading glasses. Somehow, they added to her looks, making her appear even more stately and beautiful. Sinclair Baskin’s former secretary took the photograph in her hand and studied it for nearly a minute without saying a word. “That’s Sinclair all right. The woman’s name is Judy …”

  “Judy Simmons?” Laura offered.

  “Yes, that’s the name. I remember that one very well.”

  “That one?”

  Diana nodded. “Sinclair Baskin was a full-fledged womanizer, Laura.”

  “He had affairs?”

  Diana laughed. “Dozens. Blondes, brunettes, redheads —it made no difference as long as they were beautiful. He changed them in a blur. One day, this one. The next day, another. You see, Sinclair Baskin was a handsome, smooth-talking man. He fooled around with coeds, with school colleagues, with married women. I remember when he slept with the department chairman’s wife.” She stopped, smiled. “He even fooled around with his own secretary.”

  Laura was not exactly sure how to continue. “You say there were dozens of other women?”

  “At least.”

  “Do you remember most of them?”

  She shook her head. “Hardly any.”

  “But you said you remembered Judy Simmons.”

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  “Because she was something special. For one thing, she was not his type.
”

  “Why not?”

  “Just look at her photograph. Don’t get me wrong. Judy was pretty. But Sinclair did not go after girls who were merely attractive. He wanted gorgeous. After all, he was looking for some extramarital thrills. He already had a wife. Looks were all he cared about.”

  “I see.”

  “I mean, it would be normal for him to try to bed her once maybe, but not more than that.”

  “And that’s why you remember her?”

  Diana Klenke shook her head. “That’s only part of it. The main reason I remember her so well is that she lasted. They were together for more than two months. It was the first time I had ever seen Sinclair care about a woman—myself included. He was as close to helplessly in love as a man like Sinclair Baskin becomes. He even considered divorcing his wife so that he could marry Judy. Thoughts of other women disappeared from his mind. It was all highly irregular for him.”

  “So what happened?”

  “Happened?”

  “What went wrong?”

  Diana stood. She walked over to the window and drew back the curtain. The backyard was as magnificent as the house. There were statues, gardens, and fountains. Laura could see a swimming pool, a tennis court, and a gazebo. Diana stared out, inhaling deeply as if the sight alone would make the air fresher and better to breath. “Sinclair broke it off.”

  “Just like that?” Laura asked. “He was madly in love with her and he just let her go?”

  Diana nodded, her eyes still looking out the window. Outside, a branch cast a thin shadow over her face. “One day it was love. The next … it was over.”

  “Was that normal? I mean, did Sinclair Baskin do that sort of thing a lot?”

  “Like I said before, Judy Simmons was an unusual case. I was surprised … at first.”

  “But why did he break it off? His family? His kids?”

  She still did not face Laura. “Not because of his family and not because of his kids.”

  “Then what?”

  A tight smile slowly came to Diana Klenke’s lips. “My husband loved this yard, Laura. When the weather was nice, he would come home from work early and just putter in the garden. Enjoying the fruits of his labors, he would say. He found gardening to be very therapeutic. Me, I hate gardening. But I do love the results. Don’t you?”