Let Me Whisper in Your Ear

by Mary Jane Clark

  It was when the police officer asked Laura for a list of the people she actually knew at the fund-raiser that she became truly terrified.

  “You think it was someone who knows me?” she asked fearfully.

  “It usually is, in a case like this, miss,” the officer replied. “Someone just didn’t walk around willy-nilly and, out of the blue, pick your drink to poison.”

  Emmett had tried to convince Laura to go home and stay at his house, but Laura had insisted that she just wanted to go back to her apartment and sleep in her own bed.

  Now, Laura gingerly undressed, her body sore and aching. Her throat was dry. The doctor had explained that she would feel dehydrated for a few days.

  “Would you mind making me some tea before you go?” she asked Matthew as she slipped gratefully between the clean, crisp sheets.

  “Yes, I’ll be happy to make the tea, but I’m not going,” he said as he stroked her soft hair. “I want to stay with you.”

  “Matthew, please don’t give me a hard time, and don’t baby me. I don’t have the energy to fight with you. You have to go. You have to do that interview with Ed Alford in Florida tomorrow.”

  “Screw the interview. I’m staying with you,” he insisted.

  “Look. All I’m going to do is sleep. That’s all I want to do. I just want to be left alone to rest. If you stayed, I’d be feeling like I have to get up and talk. Really, I’ll be fine by myself. No one is going to get to me here. This building is totally secure,” she declared, sounding braver than she felt. And besides, I want you to go and get that interview. We need it for our piece.”

  127

  “LOOK, IT’S NOT a good idea to give my name,” the raspy voice whispered. “But it’s something you should check out, Detective Ortiz. Have the feds go with a search warrant to the Internet service provider ‘PDQ.com,’ and find out who pays the monthly bill for Casper’s Ghostland. It may be a long shot, but it might help you figure out who killed Gwyneth Gilpatric.”

  After the caller hung up, Ortiz checked. The call had come from KEY News.

  128

  Friday, January 28

  AN INCH OF powdery white snow fell as Emmett stood outside the Cliffside Park Police Station, not wanting to go in.

  But he had to. He had made a promise, and for once in his life he was going to keep it.

  What would happen to him, he did not know. He didn’t even really care anymore.

  Laura was all right. That was all that mattered.

  He stamped the snow from his feet as he pulled open the heavy steel door and walked up directly to the police desk.

  129

  LAURA AWOKE TO the ringing of the telephone.

  “Hello?” she answered groggily.

  “Laura? It’s Joel. Joel Malcolm. How are you feeling?”

  “Better, thanks. But I’m so tired.”

  “That’s too bad, kiddo. But I’m glad you’re okay. I hate to ask you this,” he continued without missing a beat, “but are you going to be able to finish the story?”

  Laura knew he didn’t hate to ask her at all. The sweeps story was all he really cared about. Bastard.

  “Don’t worry, Joel,” she reassured him tiredly. “The piece will be finished in time. I’ll be in tomorrow and the rest of the weekend if necessary to get it done.”

  Replacing the receiver in its cradle, Laura got out of bed and slowly walked to the bathroom. She stared at her face, pale and grayish in the unforgiving makeup lighting that Gwyneth had had installed around the large mirror.

  Someone had tried to kill her.

  She didn’t want to die.

  * * *

  There was no answer at Emmett’s as Laura tried for the third time to reach him. She was angry. He hadn’t even bothered to call her and see how she was.

  She lay quietly in the large bed, but could not fall back asleep. She had to confront her father with what she knew, had to find out what, exactly, he and Gwyneth were to one another, and what, if anything, they had to do with the death of Tommy Cruz.

  There was so much to do. The piece wasn’t even written, much less edited. But before she could start writing, she had to talk to Emmett. What he might tell her could solve the mystery of Tommy’s disappearance.

  If that was the case, the piece would be a blockbuster. A thirty-year-old mystery solved by Hourglass. Joel would be thrilled. The ratings would be high.

  But her father would be a murderer.

  130

  THERE WAS NEWS on Tommy’s case.

  Felipe and Marta Cruz walked hand in hand into the police station a half hour after they received a call asking them to come in. A young patrolman escorted the couple into the chief’s office.

  “You have something new to tell us?” Felipe asked tentatively.

  The chief cleared his throat uncomfortably. “Yes, Mr. and Mrs. Cruz. Someone has come forward with information about Tommy’s death.”

  The couple waited.

  “According to this source, what happened that night was an accident. A tragic, terrible accident.”

  Marta closed her eyes and clasped her hands in her lap as she listened to the chief’s explanation.

  “Apparently Tommy and his friend Ricky Potenza sneaked into the amusement park that night after it closed to collect a reward.”

  “A reward,” interrupted Felipe in confusion. “What sort of reward? I don’t understand.”

  The chief was patient. He had two kids of his own.

  “They had been running errands all summer for the guy who ran the roller coaster. He promised them free rides when the park was closed as payment.” He waited, but the Cruzes remained silent.

  “Anyway, Tommy and Ricky came that night to get their rides. It seems they dared one another to stand up on the ride as it came to the roller coaster’s apex and, in the force of the Cyclone’s sudden descent, Tommy lost his balance and fell from the roller coaster car.”

  “But I don’t understand,” cried Marta. “What happened to Tommy? How did his body get buried?”

  “The guy who ran the roller coaster and his girlfriend carried Tommy’s body from the park and buried it. It was the girlfriend’s cross we found near the body.”

  So, in the end, it was as simple as that, thought Marta, a strange sense of peace beginning to flow over her. An accident. What fear Tommy had known was, mercifully, only momentary. No one had tortured him or sexually assaulted him. None of the terrifying scenarios with which she had tormented herself over the years had actually been inflicted on her baby.

  God was good.

  131

  Saturday, January 29

  SHE HATED TO cancel her session with Jade, but there was no way of getting around it. She had to get to the office. Matthew was meeting her there.

  As she was gathering her paraphernalia into her canvas carryall, the intercom buzzed, the doorman announcing a visitor.

  Startled, Laura answered, “Send him right up.”

  She was waiting for her father as the elevator doors opened.

  “I’ve been trying to reach you, Pop.”

  “I’m sorry, Munk. I’ve been busy.”

  She gestured. “Come in. We have to talk.”

  Emmett’s eyes swept the room, but he made no comment on the lush surroundings as he took the seat that Laura offered him.

  “Are you feeling better, Munk?”

  “Well enough to go to work. I have to finish my story.”

  “That’s what I came here to talk to you about, honey.”

  She listened silently as he slowly unburdened himself of the story that had happened all those years ago on that late summer’s night.

  “And Gwyneth?” Laura asked when he was finished.

  “Believe it or not, Munk, Gwyneth found your old dad quite attractive in those days. I suppose it was the excitement of dating someone her parents didn’t approve of.” He shrugged. “Once she went off to college, she would have forgotten all about me, if we hadn’t had our secret. But later, a
s GiGi became more and more successful, she began to send me money. She said she wanted to help me out, since I had you and was raising you all alone and all. But when she couldn’t find the cross she was wearing that night, she didn’t like the idea that I’d be able to say it was her. So, you know, it was really kind of an insurance policy. So I wouldn’t talk.”

  “And Mommy knew all this?” Laura asked, remembering the whispered conversation she had overheard between her parents as her mother lay on her deathbed.

  “She didn’t know about the money. That came later,” answered Emmett sadly. “But she did know what happened at the park, God rest her soul. She wanted me to tell the police, but I wouldn’t.”

  “You should have,” Laura whispered with a heavy heart.

  132

  THE HOURGLASS OFFICES were quiet Saturday morning as Laura arrived, but Matthew and the editor he had called in were already screening tapes.

  A handsome-looking older man was talking on the monitor while Matthew typed text of his remarks into his computer.

  “Ed Alford?” asked Laura.

  “Mm-hmm.” Matthew’s fingers tapped away.

  Laura watched as the retired cop gave his recollection of events and she instinctively noted the sound bite they would use in their piece. “Tommy Cruz did not fit the description of a runaway. I was positive that something had happened to that little boy, something that he had no control over. And I had a gut feeling, though I couldn’t prove it, what happened to Tommy Cruz had something to do with Palisades Amusement Park.”

  “He was right,” Laura whispered.

  Matthew looked at Laura keenly and she motioned him to follow her out of the editing booth so they could speak privately. As they walked down the hallway together, Laura quietly recounted the story Emmett had told her.

  “I should be glad. Our piece will be gangbusters,” she concluded ironically, bitterness creeping into her voice. “We’ve got our ratings-guaranteed ending. We’ve solved our mystery.”

  133

  IT WAS ALMOST eight o’clock when they decided to call it a day, feeling satisfied with how much they had accomplished. Laura and Matthew had finished a rough draft of their script, weaving in the various sound bites they had accumulated in their interviews over the last month, planning for the places where they would use the pictures and old film of the amusement park, picking the spots where they would bring up the sound of the various Palisades Park songs.

  On Monday, they would show the script to Joel, knowing full well that the executive producer would rip their work apart critically, demanding that changes be made. That’s the way the system worked and they would try not to take Joel’s criticisms personally.

  They speculated on how Joel would react when he learned that Gwyneth Gilpatric had helped bury Tommy Cruz, both deciding that, in the end, Malcolm would only care about the sensational result. Ratings. Ratings. Ratings.

  “You look beat, honey,” said Matthew as they waited for the elevator to take them down to the Broadcast Center lobby. “How about we order in some Chinese food and relax?”

  Laura shook her head. “Thanks, Matthew. That’s sweet of you, but you’re right, I’m exhausted. I just want to go home and get some sleep. I’m sorry, but you understand, don’t you?”

  He kissed her forehead gently. “Of course I do.”

  By nine o’clock, Laura was asleep in Gwyneth’s bed.

  134

  AFTER A MADDENING wait, the jet finally taxied across the runway at the San Juan airport.

  Francheska was glad that she had been able to change her reservations and get an earlier flight out. She didn’t like being away from New York.

  She hated to disappoint her parents by leaving early, but she could not take one more minute of her father’s reminiscences about Jaime, her mother’s dragging her to Mass to pray for her dead brother.

  As the plane lifted into the air, Francheska gazed out the window, thinking that there was no point in looking back.

  She wanted to get home, to New York. Her life was there.

  135

  Sunday, January 30

  LAURA’S EYES OPENED and tried to adjust to read the illuminated hands of the clock on the bedside table.

  Two-fifteen.

  She lay in the darkened room, her mind racing. What would happen to Emmett now? What consequences would there be for his actions thirty years ago? As much as she was heartbroken about what her father had done, she did not want to see him go to prison. How would he survive there?

  She had tossed and turned, hoping for soothing sleep to return, but now she was wide awake.

  Laura switched on the lights and went to the kitchen, putting a kettle of water on the stove to boil. She pulled a bag of decaffeinated tea from the canister on the counter.

  With cup in hand, she wandered into the library. Perhaps something good to read would help her get her mind off everything. As she went to the wall of books, her gaze fell on the pile Francheska had left in the corner. Her new roommate’s hard drive, video monitor and printer were waiting to be hooked up in its new home.

  Why not? Francheska would be thrilled to find the miserable job all done when she got back. Laura knew how hard the trip to see her parents was for her friend. It would be a pleasant surprise for her to arrive and find her computer all ready to go, especially if she was, as she said, going to take some more courses to help her get a real job.

  Laura lifted the parts of the computer carefully, her body still aching. She arranged the components on the small desk that they had moved from another room so that they would both be able to work in the beautiful library. She was satisfied with herself as she matched the various wires to their proper portals. Francheska’s computer was now connected to its monitor, the mouse, a set of small speakers, and her own combination printer-copier-fax machine.

  Now the test. Laura switched on the computer.

  Beautiful, she thought, as the brief, soothing START WINDOWS music played and Francheska’s DESKTOP appeared on the screen.

  Laura was about to shut everything down when it occurred to her that it might be nice to create a little WELCOME HOME sign and tape it to the front of Francheska’s video monitor. She took the mouse in hand and double-clicked on the MICROSOFT WORD icon and watched the program open up, presenting Laura with a blank piece of “paper.” She began typing, in a large, fancy font, centering each line of text.

  WELCOME HOME, FRANCHESKA!

  YOU’RE ALL PLUGGED IN!

  Laura brought the mouse up to the top of the screen and clicked FILE so she could print out her sign. She was just about to press PRINT when she noticed, curiously, at the bottom of the pull-down menu, the list which most word processing programs automatically prepare for their users: the last four documents that had been worked on.

  GHOSTLAND GRID

  FORDHAM

  RECIPE

  MAMA Y PAPA

  Guiltily, she slid the mouse down its pad and clicked open the first document in the list.

  136

  FEELING GRIMY AND irritable, Francheska waited for a taxi at La Guardia Airport, along with scores of other passengers from her delayed flight.

  When her turn finally came, she barked her Central Park West destination to the cab driver.

  Francheska sat back into her seat and closed her eyes. In a little while she would be sleeping in Gwyneth Gilpatric’s bed.

  137

  LAURA STARED IN disbelief at the computer screen.

  Having opened GHOSTLAND GRID, Laura was now studying what looked like a financial spreadsheet. One hundred names flowed, in alphabetical order, down the left-hand column; and, next to each name, a different e-mail address for each month of the year.

  As Laura scrolled down, she recognized almost of all of the names as some of the most well-known people in the print and television news media. She marveled at how much power, and money, each name represented.

  About one-third of the way down the list of names, Laura’s attention was draw
n to GWYNETH GILPATRIC. She noted that, instead of an e-mail address, there was only one word next to Gwyneth’s name: CASPER!

  Laura tried to make sense of what she was looking at. She thought back to the evenings, when she and Francheska were roommates, when they had visited Emmett. She recalled Francheska’s insistence that they go down to the basement to see the mini-park and the fancy her friend had taken to the Casper’s Ghostland attraction with its painted cartoon characters of Casper, Wendy and Spooky.

  What did all of this mean?

  She decided to go back to the list of four recent documents she had discovered under the file menu. Ignoring the one entitled FORDHAM, as that was probably just a letter asking about admissions procedures, she clicked on the third document in the list.

  Laura felt her pulse throbbing in her ears, her face growing hot, as she read the contents of RECIPE. It left no doubt that Francheska Lamb, Laura’s trusted friend, was not the woman Laura believed her to be.

  Francheska had ordered gamma hydroxybutyrate powder. It was obvious that she had downloaded, and then saved, the instructions for combining all the ingredients needed to create a substance called Liquid G.

  Francheska had tried to kill her!

  Laura’s thoughts spun as she tried to remember the events that led up to her collapse at the fund-raiser. Francheska had left before she got sick, so Francheska didn’t know that the poison hadn’t killed her friend. Laura felt her stomach wretch as she realized that Francheska had left for Puerto Rico believing that Laura would be dead when she returned.

  Everything was falling into place now, like a deadly row of dominoes. Laura realized that Francheska had a reason to kill Gwyneth, whom she perceived as having caused her brother’s death. Francheska had a reason to kill Kitzi Malcolm, the eyewitness to her crime. Francheska could have killed Delia, too, if she thought the maid had seen her just prior to Gwyneth’s death.