by Harlan Coben
'Show me?'
'David might be here ...' She stopped herself. An idea had surged into her head, and her mouth had moved with too much speed. This was a dangerous game she was playing, putting the two of them together, but maybe it was the only way to find out if her theory was true. 'I have some photographs and stuff, but we can't go over this all on the telephone. Can you come here tomorrow evening? Seven o'clock?'
'I'll fly up right now. I'll be there in a couple of hours -- '
'No,' Judy cut in. 'I want you to be here tomorrow night at seven p.m. Don't come any earlier.'
'Why seven p.m.?'
'Please, Laura, just trust me on this, okay?'
'But I want to know -- '
'Tomorrow. Seven p.m. I love you, Laura.'
'I love you too, Aunt Judy.'
Laura heard the phone click. She replaced the receiver and turned to her guest. Sitting in front of Laura was her mother. The color in Mary's face had drained away in the last minute or two, leaving a skeletal death mask in its place.
Chapter 23
Fire. Satan's soothing bath water. Emblem of Hell. Instrument of mass destruction. Fire devoured everything in its path without concern for value or worth. Fire scorched the skin, fused the flesh to bones, choked the life out of lungs, eventually leading to . . .
The killer drove past the Connecticut state line and into New York on the way to Colgate College.
... Death.
I often wonder about Death. What is it, really? No one has any idea, do they? People have speculated since the beginning of time, but each original concept of the hereafter has been as absurd as the one before. How did Hamlet put it before his own demise? Didn't he describe death as 'an undiscovered country from whose bourn no traveler returns?' Is that what we fear, the unknown quantity of the Great Beyond? Was it a glorious Heaven, a destructive Hell, a great black nothingness, or all of the above?
Tears stood in the killer's eyes, tears of regret and sadness.
I have sent people to the mysterious other world. I have handed two souls to the Grim Reaper, never to return . . .
Three, if I include David.
The killer's body trembled, rage pulsing through its veins and arteries. One simple word was shouted. 'No!'
No! I will not take the blame for that. I did not kill him. People react to their situation. David Baskin did what he thought best. And that was a shame. Despite his father, I couldn't help but admire David Baskin. And I am not a murderer. Not in my heart. I never meant to hurt anybody, not really. Yes, I killed Sinclair Baskin. I put a gun against his forehead and I pulled the trigger, but it was an act spawned from a thoughtless fury against a man who deserved to die. Like David Baskin, I reacted to a set of circumstances. And as far as my second murder is concerned -The steering-wheel spun in the killer's hands, nearly driving the car off the road.
The second murder. What about the cruel butchery of my second, nameless victim? Can I dismiss that as easily as the death of Sinclair Baskin? No. Guilt will burn eternally inside me for slaying that unstained soul. Why did I have to do it? He was, after all, an innocent victim. My only solace comes from a Machiavellian concept: the ends justify the means. History would say that the decision was a clever one and in the end, I have to agree. Just look at Laura if you don't believe me.
The killer glanced at the map, spotting the exit leading to Hamilton, New York. Hamilton was the home of Colgate College.
Thirty years ago. All of that had happened over three decades ago. Kennedy had still been alive. Incredible. So long ago and still not an hour goes by when I am not reminded of my days in Chicago. They haunt my every step, my every dream, though I do step and sleep with a clear conscience. But I had thought, hoped, prayed that all of the secrets of the past had been laid to rest years ago. I assumed that the past was just that -- the past. I never expected it to hurt me again.
Or did I?
In the back of my mind, didn't I know that the past would survive and resurface one day? I guess I did. But all of a sudden, horrible secrets are coming at me, tidal-waving at me, laughing and taunting and threatening to destroy everything I cherish. Stan Baskin, a man frighteningly like his father, wants to blackmail me. I will deal with him tomorrow night. Deal with him brutally.
And Judy. After all these years, Judy wants to talk about the past. Why? Why couldn't she just let it be? Why does she insist on keeping the past alive, on helping it thrive with its full wrath intact?
The car exited the highway. The container of kerosene rolled back and forth in the trunk, making a clanking noise when it hit the metallic sides. A book of matches sat on the dashboard. Hamilton was not very far off now.
First Judy.
Then Stan.
Then . . . ?
Judy made herself a cup of tea and sat in the kitchen. Her eyes glanced at the clock for the third time in the last four minutes: 6:20 p.m.
If everything went according to schedule, Mark Seidman and Laura would both be arriving in about forty minutes. She realized that she had created a volatile situation by telling them both to be here at the same time. The last few hours had been spent questioning that decision. Judy carefully weighed the risks against the rewards and realized that there was no contest. She had to do it. Enough time had been wasted, enough lives thrashed apart and left to decay in the hot sun.
She took out the Lipton tea bag, read the little health tip on the tag, and tossed it into the garbage can. A half-teaspoon of sugar and a drop of milk were added. She had hoped to brew up some nice herbal tea. One of the students in her seminar on nineteenth-century American poetry had spent a semester in the Orient and had brought her back a whole slew of wonderful teas from mainland China. But, alas, Judy had used them all up already. So it was back to Lipton for today. Tomorrow she would go out to that avant-garde gourmet shop in town and pick up some new herbs.
Tomorrow.
Like the corny lyrics to that song in Annie, she realized that tomorrow was only a day away. And yet, it was a lifetime. The Judy that 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 only knew that the future was coming. Her emotions darted from one extreme to the other. 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 in 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 1960. 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 her shot Laura an annoyed glance.
Laura stopped her leg. 'Sorry,' she said.
The blue-haired woman said nothing.
Laura turned back toward 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 over 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 her? What was all this talk of the past? Why did Aunt Judy want Laura to wait until 7:00 p.m. today to see her? And how could all of this possibly be connected to David's death in June?
Too many questions. 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 toward 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 now 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, her hand reached for the deadbolt. 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 COLLEGE
The car turned right and entered the campus. The campus was storybook small college. Buildings that would be covered with ivy if it were not for the snow 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 P.O. 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 wind-chill 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 cat-napped. A pleasant companion.
But Ms Psychedelic Hairdo had been a welcome distraction from the agony of the unknown. Minutes on the plane 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 snow banks.
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.
The killer stepped out of the car and opened the trunk. A quick look around proved no one was in the area. Good. Very good. A hand reached into the trunk and pulled out a kerosene container. The hand shook wildly, spilling some of the flammable liquid onto the snow.
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 in 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: 6:45 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 her empty cup 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.