by James Hayman
The trickier part of the equation was A) convincing her he wouldn’t hurt her if she did cut the ropes. And B) convincing her that he really would pay up. He was a good salesman. Hell, he was a great salesman and, in this instance, he had a great case to make. All she had to do was cut the blindfold over his eyes so he could see what he was doing and then cut the rope holding his right hand. After that she could just take off while he was still tied to the bed and unable to give chase. With his right hand free he was sure he could work his way out of the rest of the ropes himself while she got herself out of harm’s way. Second, even if he did meet with her at some later date to deliver the money, why on earth would he want to hurt her then and have the whole crazy nightmare end up going public? Probably with cops and courts and God only knew what. His boss would find out. His wife would find out. Potential future employers would find out. His reputation would be ruined. And so would his career. He thought about it and found the argument compelling. A hundred thou for her coupled with his need to keep the whole incident quiet. Okay. Settled. That was the pitch. Now all he needed was for her to come back.
He lay his head back down on the pillow and tried to breathe calmly and regularly. However long it took he wouldn’t lose his temper again. It was just as he was telling himself that for maybe the fiftieth time that the silence was broken by a noise. A bang. Sounded like a small caliber gunshot from downstairs. Suddenly alert, Josh wondered what the hell was going on. Had someone come back in the house and shot Norah? Had she shot someone else? Could it just have been someone slamming a door? Or a firecracker going off on the street? He supposed any and all were possible.
“Norah?” he called again, keeping his voice calm, not angry, hoping against hope there would be some kind, any kind, of response.
Finally, to his surprise there was. Nothing verbal. Just the sound of feet climbing creaky stairs. Thank God, she was coming back. He’d make his pitch and soon he would be free.
The door to the bedroom opened. Warmer air from the hallway wafted across his body. Josh took in a deep breath.
“Norah? Is that you?” he asked in the pleasantest voice he could muster. “Where have you been? I was getting worried.”
There was no answer. But there was definitely someone else in the room. No question about it. He could hear soft gentle breathing at the side of the bed. If only he could reach out and touch her. “So you came back?” he said. “That’s great. Listen, there’s something we should really talk about. Something that would benefit both of us greatly.”
She still offered no response. But Josh could hear what sounded like her stocking or maybe bare feet moving across the room toward the end of the bed.
He turned his head in the direction the sound seemed to be coming from. “Well, I hope you’ve enjoyed yourself, Norah, but it’s time to let me go. It really is. And you know what? I will pay you . . . are you listening . . . fifty thousand dollars in cash to simply cut the rope holding my right hand to the bed and remove the blindfold. I know, you’re probably thinking if you cut the ropes I might hurt you in some way. But you know something? If you only cut the rope holding my right hand you could take off and I wouldn’t be able to hit you or even touch you in any way.”
There was still no response. Josh could still hear her breathing. Then he felt her hand lift his penis and hold it. Then she stroked his balls. What the fuck was going on? Did she want to have sex again? Weird. He wondered if she was still naked. Maybe she was just some kind of crazy sex addict. Maybe that’s all this whole crazy thing was about.
“I won’t hurt you,” he said. “I promise I won’t. Just cut the rope and let me go and I’ll give you fifty thousand tax-free dollars no questions asked, no answers needed.”
She started sliding her hand up and down his penis, her fingers tickling his balls. He felt himself growing hard. “Hey, listen, if you want to fool around again, well, we can do that.”
The only response was a soft chuckle.
“Norah? What are you doing?” he asked as calmly as he could.
The hand between his legs began moving faster. Josh lay back, his breath coming more rapidly now, his mind too confused to object to something that even under the current circumstances still felt good.
“I hope you’re enjoying your hand job, Josh. Because I’m afraid it’s going to be the last one you’ll ever get.”
And just as Josh’s body arched up in his final urgent sexual climax, he felt hands untying the blindfold and removing it from his eyes.
“I also want you to have one last look at me.”
Josh opened his eyes and stared up in both shock and horror as the cold, sharp steel of a twelve-inch butcher’s knife was raised high above his body and thrust deeply between his legs. He began screaming. But his screams of pain at what was happening were abruptly cut short as the point of the now bloodied knife, having done its work between his legs, was next pushed deeply into his neck and pulled across his throat, severing first his trachea, then his carotid artery and finally his jugular.
Before the self-proclaimed prince of Wall Street, the self-made millionaire, the hot-shit stud whose charms no woman could resist, before he could gather his wits enough to understand what the fuck was going on or even why, before he could begin to mentally process the horror of it all, Joshua Thorne’s conscious mind blanked out. His breathing slowed. His life’s blood, which had first flowed from the agonizing wounds of castration, now poured out, first in bursts and then in a torrent from his nearly severed neck. In less than a minute both the bleeding and Josh’s breathing stopped for the very last time.
Chapter 19
MAGGIE HAD JUST crossed the Massachusetts line into Connecticut on I-84 when Toni Bernstein called. She said Heather Loughlin was willing—in fact, anxious—to meet with them tonight. As soon as Maggie could get there.
“At first she was reluctant,” said Bernstein. “Went into the usual ‘I’ve already told you everything I know’ routine. Didn’t know what business a cop from Portland had butting in blah-blah-blah. But as soon as I mentioned Joshua Thorne’s name and told her he’d been declared missing, she turned on a dime and said she’d meet with us tonight. Whatever time you got here. She sounded not so much shook up . . . I don’t know, almost excited hearing that something might have happened to him. Said she knew him from college.”
“Heather went to Holden?”
“That’s what she said.”
“Did you get the feeling she might know something about Thorne’s disappearance?”
“No. I don’t think so. She sounded genuinely surprised to hear his name. What I do think is hearing about Thorne disappearing, just a week after Charlie’s death, was proof to her that Charlie didn’t kill himself. Proof he was murdered. Which I’d guess was her second choice from the beginning.”
“Second choice?”
“Yeah. It makes a weird kind of sense. I think an accident would have been her first choice, but if the death wasn’t accidental, maybe it’s more comforting for the grieving widow to think some bad guy killed her husband than believing that the guy hated his life and his marriage so much he would kill himself to end it. At least if it’s murder you don’t spend the rest of your life wondering what you did wrong or what you might have done differently. So yeah. Bad as it is, murder is better than suicide. But we can talk more about that later, after you meet Heather. How long before you get here?” she asked.
“Forty-five minutes, give or take.”
“Have your GPS take you to 67 Schuyler Road. Once you get close, you’ll take a right off Albany onto Schuyler. Loughlin’s house is about a quarter mile down on the right. Big stone Tudor. More ostentatious than beautiful. I’ll be in a black unmarked Taurus parked right out front. Pull in behind me.”
Maggie ended the call and asked Siri to take her to the Schuyler Road address. Siri told Maggie it would be her pleasure.
A little over half an hour later, she pulled her red TrailBlazer behind Bernstein’s car and flashed her
lights twice to announce her presence. Bernstein exited, ground out a cigarette, bent over and picked up the filter and stuck it in her jacket pocket. She lit another cigarette and walked back to the driver’s side of Maggie’s Chevy sucking in smoke. Maggie lowered the window and a wave of tobacco smoke blew in.
“Savage?”
“Call me Maggie. I take it you’re Toni Bernstein.”
“That’s me.”
“You always chain-smoke?”
“Pretty much. But if it bothers you I’ll try to refrain.”
“I can handle it.”
Bernstein went around to the passenger’s side and climbed up into the TrailBlazer. She was a big-boned woman, nearly as tall as Maggie and probably thirty pounds heavier. Not much of it looked like fat. Maggie guessed she was in her midforties. Her graying dark hair cut short. Even aided by careful makeup remnants of scars from what must have been a vicious case of teenage acne were still visible.
After exchanging some pleasantries about the drive down, Bernstein said, “Well, this is Charlie’s house.”
The large stone Tudor was set back maybe two hundred feet from the road. Both the house and the brick driveway leading to the three-car garage were well-lit with floods.
“Looks like the insurance business pays well. What’s a place like this go for?”
Bernstein shrugged. “Today’s market? Probably a million five. Give or take a hundred thou.”
“So Charlie was making plenty of money.”
“Oh yeah. More than you and me put together. Maybe not in the Wall Street class but Charlie was doing okay.”
“What kind of insurance did he handle?”
“Mostly commercial. Charlie insured most of the small businesses in and around West Hartford. Quite a few of the bigger ones too.”
“Tell me about the wife.”
“A classic Heather. You know what I mean? One of those pretty blonde homecoming queen types I always hated in high school when I couldn’t get a date and she had all the guys drooling over her. She and Charlie met in college.”
“Does Heather have a career?”
“She used to do the weather on the Fox station out of Hartford back before her kids were born. Didn’t know shit about meteorology but she looked good reading the teleprompter. Last six years, she’s been a full-time mom with the help of a part-time nanny. Which means she gets to play golf and tennis as much as she wants and have lunch with her pals at the country club a couple of times a week. She also helps run a couple of local causes.”
“Like what?”
“Local animal shelter. And the historic preservation society. But mostly she took care of her hubby, who I guess was as demanding of her as he was of his employees.”
“Sexually demanding?”
“Maybe, but judging by her clothes, jewelry and the Mercedes SUV she drives, Mrs. Charlie had a pretty good gig while it lasted. Of course she was devastated by his death. Or so she says.”
“Aside from the money, did she seem happy with her marriage?”
“If she wasn’t she didn’t let on. The two times I interviewed her she seemed pretty broken up by his death. You mind if we get out of the car? I could use another cigarette.”
“It’s okay. Just open your window and blow the smoke that way.”
Bernstein tapped another Camel out of the pack and lit it. “You haven’t asked me yet how much insurance Charlie carried.”
“How much?”
“I don’t know but I imagine a lot.”
“Millions?”
“Probably. One of the folks at the Northway office wouldn’t put a number on it, but he said Charlie quote ‘arranged well for his family’ unquote. Started going on about a bunch of fancy policies and trust arrangements most of which I couldn’t make heads nor tails of. Not my area of expertise.”
“Anybody else look into it?”
“Nobody has, thanks to the DA’s hands-off order. But I have a feeling Heather the widow’s going to be a whole lot richer than Heather the wife. Just has to find herself a willing boy toy.”
“Any possibility she was the woman in the black parka?”
“Nope. She has a rock solid alibi for the night he was killed.”
“Like what?”
“Dinner and girl talk with three friends at one of their houses. All three corroborate. Left about eleven. When she got home she told the seventeen-year-old babysitter she wanted her to call her mother and let her know she was spending the night. Said the roads were icy and dangerous and the girl had only been driving for a couple of months. Both the babysitter and the mother confirm the story. The two boys, Josh and Cameron, were both asleep. Heather says she had a glass of wine, watched Letterman with the sitter for an hour and then went to bed. Woke up at two in the morning when the youngest one, three-year-old Cameron, got frightened about something and climbed into bed with her.”
Maggie held up both hands in surrender. “And I’ll bet even Cameron corroborates the story. Right?”
Bernstein didn’t laugh. “When Heather noticed Charlie wasn’t there, she tried reaching him by phone. When she couldn’t, she called 911. And yes, for what it’s worth, Cameron vouches for his mother. At least, when asked the question ‘Did you get in bed with Mommy last night?’ he nods solemnly. So no. Heather Loughlin did not kill her husband. Guaranteed. How about Thorne’s wife? What was she up to the night he disappeared? She have an alibi?”
“Three hundred miles away in Brooklyn, New York, going to a movie and having dinner with a friend. The friend corroborates. When did they find Charlie’s body?”
“Next morning around eight. A man driving to work stopped at the overlook to take a pee behind the bushes.”
“Popular pastime.”
“Certainly seems so. Wish us girls had it so easy. Anyway, the guy checks out Charlie’s empty car. Then looks over the edge, sees Charlie lying there and calls us.”
Maggie frowned. “If Charlie was pushed over the edge and Charlie’s car was still there, how did the pusher leave the scene?”
“Good question. We checked and nobody called a cab. So either an accomplice picked the killer up or Wilcox, if it was Wilcox, must have gone on foot.”
“How far?”
“About five miles from the restaurant parking lot. Assuming that’s where Norah left her vehicle.”
Maggie thought about that. Five miles was easily walkable. Even on a cold winter night.
Bernstein read her mind. “For what it’s worth, nobody reported seeing any walkers on that road at that hour.”
Maggie filed the question away in her mind and changed the subject. “Did you ever ask Heather about Charlie being accused of rape in college?”
“It never came up. And I didn’t mention it when I made the date with her tonight. Just told her Joshua Thorne had gone missing up in Portland. That you were investigating the case and thought there might be some connection with Charlie’s death. She didn’t ask what kind of connection, which I found a little curious. I have no idea what, if anything, she knows about the college rape or about the victim’s suicide.”
Bernstein ground out her third cigarette in ten minutes. Pocketed the filter. “Let’s head up to the house,” she said. “I’ll make preliminary intros and then you take it from there.”
Maggie nodded. “Works for me. Let’s go.”
The two detectives walked up the driveway and then along a long bluestone path to a large Tudor-style front door that was rounded at the top and looked like it had been crafted from solid oak planks. Bernstein used a big black knocker rather than ring the bell.
After a minute or so the door was opened by a woman in her early thirties with a good figure, regular features and the kind of bland blonde good looks that seem to be de rigueur for female reporters on cable news stations. Except, at the moment, this particular blonde had her shoulder-length hair tied back in a ponytail. She was dressed casually in jeans, a blue sweatshirt with the letters KP on it and a pair of expensive running shoes. She
opened the door wider and peered past them into the darkness. “No reporters or news trucks hanging around out there?” she asked.
“No. Have they been bothering you?”
“Yeah. Constantly right after Charlie died. Not so much the last few days. Not since the DA decided it was an accident.”
She signaled them inside. “Come on in. I’m Heather Loughlin.”
Maggie held out her hand. “Detective Margaret Savage. Portland Police Department.”
Mrs. Loughlin looked down at the outstretched hand and hesitated for a split second before taking and shaking it. “I’m sure you’re who you say you are but may I see some identification? What with the reporters and other creeps who’ve been banging on the door, I like to know for sure who I’m talking to.”
Maggie flipped open her badge wallet and handed it to Heather Loughlin, who examined both the gold badge and the photo ID.
“Mrs. Loughlin,” said Maggie.
“Please call me Heather.”
“Okay, Heather, I’m Maggie. Thanks for meeting with us so late.”
“Late is actually better. We just got the boys off to sleep. Why don’t we talk in the den? It’s quieter back there and we’re less likely to wake them up.” Without waiting for a response, Heather Loughlin led them through a large center hall that boasted polished hardwood floors covered with oriental rugs, past a grandiose staircase and through a large modern kitchen that seemed to Maggie to have been taken right out of the pages of Maine Home and Design or, she supposed in Heather’s case, Connecticut Home and Design, if such a magazine existed. Beyond the kitchen was an even larger room with a vaulted ceiling and glass doors that opened onto a patio and at least a half an acre of backyard lit with floods. Maggie noted a huge flat-screen TV that was turned on but muted. Built-in bookcases in dark wood dominated one wall and a floor-to-ceiling stone fireplace another. A gas fire burned in the hearth. In the center of the room a pair of large overstuffed love seats faced each other with a matching ottoman in between. Everything looked expensive. Tasteful but expensive.