My Gal Sunday

by Mary Higgins Clark

  “Right away, sir.”

  Several minutes passed before Agent Dowling was back on the phone. “Sir, there may be a problem. We’ve rung the doorbell repeatedly, but no one is answering.”

  Sunday and Tommy sat side by side on the leather couch in the library, staring into the muzzle of a revolver. Opposite them, Lillian West sat erect and steady as she held the gun. The persistent pealing of the front doorbell did not seem to distract her.

  “Your palace guard, no doubt,” she said sarcastically.

  The woman is crazy, Sunday thought as she stared into the housekeeper’s wild eyes. She’s crazy and she’s desperate. She knows she has nothing to lose by killing us, and she is just nuts enough to do it.

  Sunday thought next of the Secret Service agents waiting outside. Art Dowling and Clint Carr were with her today. What would they do when no one answered the door? They’d probably force their way in, she reasoned. And when they do, she will shoot Tommy and me, she thought, her level of alarm increasing. I know she will.

  “You have everything,” Lillian West said to Sunday, her eyes fixed on her prisoner, her voice low and angry. “You’re beautiful, you’re young, you’ve got an important job, and you’re married to a rich and attractive man. Well, I just hope that you have enjoyed the time you’ve had with him.”

  “Yes, I have,” Sunday said calmly. “He is a wonderful man and husband, and I want more time with him,”

  “Too bad, but that’s not going to happen, and it’s your fault. This wouldn’t be necessary if you’d just let well enough alone. What difference would it make if he” — Lillian West paused, her eyes cutting momentarily to Tommy — “if he went to prison? He’s not worth your trouble. He’s no good. He tricked me. He lied to me. He promised to take me to Florida. He was going to marry me.” She paused again, this time turning her full glare on the former secretary of state. “Of course, he wasn’t as rich as the others, but he has enough to get by. I’ve gone through all his papers here and I know.” A smile played on her lips. “And he’s nicer than the others, too. I liked that especially. We could have been very happy.”

  “Lillian, I didn’t lie to you,” Tommy said quietly. “Think back over all that I ever said to you, and I think you’ll agree. I do like you though, and I think you need help. I want to see that you get it. I promise that both Sunday and I will do everything we can for you.”

  “What, by getting me another housekeeping job?” Lillian snapped. “Cleaning, cooking, shopping. No thanks! I traded teaching silly girls for this kind of drudgery because I thought that somebody would finally appreciate me, would want to take care of me. But it didn’t happen. After I waited on all of them, they still treated me like dirt.” She directed her gaze again at Tommy. “I thought you were going to be different, but you’re not. You’re just like all the rest.”

  While they had been talking, the pealing of the doorbell had stopped. Sunday knew that the Secret Service men would be looking for some way to get in, and she had no doubt that they would succeed. Then she froze. When Lillian West had admitted her, she had reset the alarm. “We don’t want one of those reporters trying to sneak in,” she had explained.

  If Art or Clint tries to open a window, the alarm will go off, Sunday thought, and once that happens, Tommy and I are goners. She felt Tommy’s hand brush hers. He’s thinking the same thing, she realized. My God, what can we do? She had often heard the expression “staring death in the face,” but it wasn’t until this moment that she knew what it meant. Henry, she thought, Henry! Please don’t let this woman take away our life together.

  Tommy’s hand was closed over hers now. His index finger was insistently jabbing the back of her hand. He was trying to send her a signal. But what? she wondered. What did he want her to do?

  Henry stayed on the line, anxious not to break the connection to the Secret Service agent outside Tommy Shipman’s house. Agent Dowling was on his cellular phone now, and continued to talk to the former president as he carefully worked his way around the house. “Sir, all the draperies are drawn, in virtually every room. We’ve contacted the local police and they should be here any moment. Clint is at the back of the house, climbing a tree that has branches that reach near some windows. We might be able to get in undetected through there. The problem is that we have no way of knowing where they are within the house.”

  My God, Henry thought. It would take at least an hour to get the special equipment over there that would enable us to follow their movement inside the house. I’m just afraid we don’t have that time to spare. Sunday’s face loomed in his mind. Sunday! Sunday! She had to be all right. He wanted to get out and push the plane to make it go faster. He wanted to order the army out. He wanted to be there. Now! He shook his head. He had never felt so helpless. Then he heard Dowling swear furiously.

  “What is it, Art?” he shouted. “What is it?”

  “Sir, the draperies in the right front downstairs room just opened, and I am sure I heard shots being fired inside.”

  “That stupid woman provided me with the perfect opportunity,” Lillian West was saying. “I knew I was running out of time, that I wouldn’t be able to kill you slowly, the way I wanted. But this was just as good, really. This way I not only punished you but that dreadful woman as well.”

  “Then you did kill Arabella?” Tommy exclaimed.

  “Of course I did,” she snapped impatiently. “It was so easy, too. You see, I didn’t leave that evening. I showed her to this room, woke you up, said good night, shut the door, and hid in the coat closet. I heard it all. And I knew the pistol was there, ready for use. When you staggered upstairs, I knew it would be only a matter of minutes before you lost consciousness.” She paused and smiled mischievously. “My sleeping pills are much more effective than the ones you were used to, aren’t they? They have special ingredients.” She smiled again. “And a few interesting viruses as well. Why do you think your cold has improved so much since that night? Because you haven’t let me in to give you your pills. If you had, your cold would be pneumonia by now.”

  “You were poisoning Tommy?” Sunday exclaimed.

  Lillian West stared indignantly at the younger woman. “I was punishing him,” she said firmly. Then she turned again to Shipman. “Once you were safely upstairs, I went back into the library. Arabella was rummaging around on your desk and was flustered at first by having me catch her. She said she was looking for your car keys, said that you weren’t feeling well and had told her to drive herself home, that she would be back with the car in the morning. Then she asked me what I was doing back there, since I had told you both good night. I said I had come back because I had promised to turn your old pistol in at the police station but had forgotten to take it. The poor fool stood there and watched me while I picked it up and loaded it. Her last words were, ‘Isn’t it dangerous to load it? I’m sure Mr. Shipman didn’t intend that.’ ”

  Lillian West began to laugh, a high-pitched, almost hysterical cackle. Tears ran from her eyes and her body shook, but through it all she kept the gun trained on them.

  She’s working up to killing us, Sunday thought, for the first moment fully realizing that there was little hope for escape. Tommy’s finger was still jabbing the back of her hand.

  “ ‘Isn’t it dangerous to load it?’ ” West repeated, mimicking Arabella’s last words, her own voice cracking with loud, raucous laughter. “ ‘I’m sure Mr. Shipman didn’t intend that!’ ”

  She rested her gun hand on her left arm, steadying it. The laughter ended.

  “Would you consider opening the draperies?” Shipman asked. “At least let me see sunlight one more time.”

  Lillian West’s smile was mirthless. “Why bother with that? You’re about to see the shining light at the end of the tunnel,” she told him.

  The draperies, Sunday thought suddenly. That was what Tommy had been trying to get across to her. Yesterday when he had lowered the shade in the kitchen he’d mentioned that the electronic device that worked the
draperies in this room was defective, that it sounded a lot like a gunshot when it was used. Sunday looked around carefully. The control for the drapes was lying on the armrest of the couch. She had to get to it. It was their only hope.

  Sunday pressed Tommy’s hand by way of indicating that she finally understood. Then, as a prayer raced through her mind, she reached out and with a lightning-fast movement pressed the button that would open the drapes.

  The sound, loud as a gunshot, just as promised, made Lillian West whirl her head around. In that instant, both Tommy and Sunday leapt from the couch. Tommy threw himself at the woman’s lower body, but it was Sunday who slammed West’s hand upward just as she began to pull the gun’s trigger. As they struggled, several shots were fired. Sunday felt a burning sensation in her left arm, but it did not deter her. Unable to wrest the gun from the woman, she threw herself on top of her and kicked at the chair so that it toppled over with all three of them on it, just as the shattering of glass signaled the welcome arrival of her Secret Service detail.

  Ten minutes later, a handkerchief wrapped securely over the superficial wound on her arm, Sunday was on the phone to a totally unnerved ex-president of the United States.

  “I’m fine,” she said for the fifteenth time, “just fine. And Tommy is fine, too. Lillian West is in a straitjacket and on her way out of here. So stop worrying. Everything has been taken care of.”

  “But you could have been killed,” Henry said, not for the first time. He didn’t want to break the phone connection. He didn’t want to let his wife stop talking. This had been too close. He couldn’t bear the thought that he might ever not be able to hear her voice.

  “But I wasn’t killed,” Sunday said briskly. “And, Henry, we were both right. It was definitely a crime of passion. It was just that we were a little slow in figuring out whose passion was the cause of the crime.”

  They All Ran

  After the

  President’s

  Wife

  “It’s the Oval Office calling, Mr. President.”

  Henry Parker Britland IV sighed. “Do not go gentle into that good night,” he thought. Marvin Klein, his longtime right-hand associate, still seemed incapable of calling his successor, the current president of the United States, anything other than “the Oval Office.”

  The call came as Henry was seated at his desk in the library of Drumdoe, his New Jersey country home. The late afternoon winter sun was filtering through the tall leaded-pane windows and shimmered over the satiny paneling of the magnificent Gothic Revival decor. He’d set out to work on his memoirs but realized with a start that he had been daydreaming. Sunday, his bride of less than a year, and a member of Congress, was in Washington, and Henry had found himself wishing away the next three days until she would be here with him again.

  As always, his thoughts of her were filled with longing. Sunday — surely no one person could really be that beautiful, that intelligent, that witty, that compassionate. There were times when he truly felt that he must have dreamt her into existence. His Sunday: the slender, blond congresswoman, who on an impulse he had chosen to flirt with at his last reception in the White House, just before leaving office after his second term. With an unconscious smile, he recalled her calm, reproachful response.

  “Ahem. The Oval Office, Mr. President,” Klein insisted, effectively breaking his reverie.

  Henry picked up the phone. “Mr. President,” he said warmly.

  He could envision Desmond Ogilvey — Des, as he was known to friends — seated at his desk, scholarly in his appearance, with his shock of white hair, his long, lean frame erect, his sober dark blue suit and tie.

  He knew his former vice president had never forgotten the fact that nine years ago Henry had plucked him from the relative obscurity of being a congressman from Wyoming by choosing him to be his running mate. It was a decision challenged initially by the media, many of whom called it a gamble.

  “To you it may be a gamble,” Henry had replied, “but to me, this is a man who has served in Congress for ten terms, who has been quietly responsible for some of the most effective legislation passed by the last ten Congresses. It is my firm conviction that if I am elected by the voters, and if anything were to happen to me during my time in office, then I will go to my Maker knowing that the country I love is in the worthiest hands I could have found for it.”

  Realizing that the silence that followed his greeting was stretching out unusually long, Henry spoke again: “Des?”

  “Mr. President,” Desmond Ogilvey replied, but there was none of the usual jocularity in his tone.

  Henry instantly realized that this was not a social call, and cut immediately to the chase. “What’s wrong, Des?”

  Again a pause. Then, “It’s Sunday. Henry, I’m sorry.”

  “Sunday!” Henry’s breathing ceased. He felt suddenly that his heart had stopped beating, that his whole body was being suspended, frozen in that moment.

  “Henry, I don’t know how to tell you this. We have a terrible situation. Sunday is missing. Her Secret Service guys were found unconscious, still in the car. The same thing happened to the follow-up detail. Apparently some kind of anesthetic had been used to knock them out, enough to immobilize everyone in both cars. By the time the agents came to, Sunday was gone.”

  “Any apparent motive?” Henry was breathing again, willing himself into calmness. He was aware that his voice was even, that Marvin was stating at him, that he was pressing the buzzer to signal the Secret Service detail waiting outside.

  “We think so. A phone call was placed to the switch-board at the Treasury. The caller claimed to have Sunday, or at least to know of her whereabouts. You can tell us if the call is authentic. Does Sunday have a nasty bruise on her upper right arm, just below the shoulder?”

  Henry nodded, then whispered, “Yes.”

  “So that means that the call must be legitimate. Apparently she hadn’t mentioned the bruise to anyone on her staff, because they claim to know nothing of it.”

  “She was thrown from her horse while we were riding last Saturday,” Henry said, remembering the momentary fright he had experienced then, contrasting it to the almost paralyzing sense of foreboding he felt now. He became aware that the five Secret Service men currently on duty were standing in an arc around the desk. He nodded to Jack Collins, the senior agent, indicating that he should pick up the phone extension on the table next to the deep red Moroccan leather sofa.

  “Collins is on, Des,” Henry said. “Sunday is just learning to ride. When she got the bruise, she joked that if she told anybody about it, the tabloids would start calling me a wife beater.” He realized with a start that he was rambling. He had to get himself to focus. “Des, how much money do they want? I’ll get it ready now, no questions.”

  “I wish it were money, Henry. Unfortunately they have announced to us that unless we release Claudus Jovunet by tomorrow night, we can start dragging the Atlantic for Sunday’s body.”

  Claudus Jovunet. It was a name Henry Britland knew well. A particularly heartless terrorist; a former mercenary; a paid assassin. His most recent known crime, and the one that finally led to his capture, had been the successful bombing of a company jet of Uranus Oil, a tragedy that had claimed the lives of the company’s twenty-two top executives. After a career that spanned fifteen years of terror, Jovunet had finally been brought to justice and was now serving consecutive life sentences in the federal prison at Marion, Ohio. While Henry had played no real part in getting the killer into prison, he had taken a particular satisfaction that it had happened during his term of office.

  “What are the terms of exchange?” Henry asked, knowing as the question left his lips that Des might not feel that he could allow the government to be held up by a terrorist organization.

  “The instructions are to put Jovunet on the new supersonic transport. As you are aware, it is currently on display at National here in Washington, preparatory to its inaugural flight. They stipulate that there can b
e only the two pilots on board. The only other instruction is a little on the odd side: they say we should fully stock the galley, but — I’m quoting, now — we can ’skip the caviar.’ ” The president paused. “They give — and again I am quoting — their ’sacred word’ that after the flight lands, the pilots will be permitted to radio the details of where Sunday can be found, quoting again, ‘alive and well.’ ”

  “Their ’sacred word,’ ” Henry snapped bitterly. Oh, Sunday, Sunday!

  He glanced at Jack Collins who was mouthing the word “weapons.”

  “What kind of weapons are they demanding, Des?” Henry asked.

  “None, oddly enough. If we can believe these people — ”

  “Can we believe these people?” Henry asked, interrupting.

  Des sighed. “We have little choice, Henry.”

  “What are the plans?” Henry held his breath after asking the question, afraid of what he might hear.

  “Henry, Jerry is here with me,” Des said. Jerry was Jeremy Thomas, secretary of the treasury.

  Henry interrupted: “Des, how long can we drag it out while we seem to play along?”

  “We’re supposed to get another message at one of the Departments at five o’clock. We think we can stall until Thursday afternoon, at least. Fortunately the Washington Post carried a story this morning about several minor mechanical adjustments that have to be made before the new plane can take its first flight on Friday.” He paused. “And to put your mind at rest even a little, be assured that we absolutely intend to go through with the exchange.”

  Henry’s body shuddered as he allowed himself the first deep breath in several minutes. He looked at his watch. It was four o’clock Wednesday afternoon. If they were lucky they had twenty-four hours. “I’m on my way, Des,” Henry said.

  Tom Wyman, the agent second in command, broke the silence that followed the click of the phones: “The helicopter is waiting, sir. The plane is in readiness for immediate departure.”