Surprise Party

by Katz, William

  Samantha didn't realize what Lynne was talking about, so Lynne pointed to her own stomach. Samantha felt like a fool for forgetting. "Of course," she told Auerbach. "I'm going to make an announcement from the head table. A special thing. Shall I signal you when?"

  "I'd appreciate that," Auerbach said. Samantha was amazed at his wiry youth. She'd expected someone much older. She hadn't realized Auerbach was a college student who did this in his spare time.

  He asked many more questions. Did Samantha have a list of people who had to have close-ups? Did she want "interviews" with guests? Were any subjects to be avoided? Were there things or people who shouldn't be included?

  The tone bespoke more experience than Samantha would have imagined. Auerbach knew that parties were very political events, that the videotapes had to reflect the right point of view, show people in the light that the host intended. The tape was the modern version of the wedding album, whose pictures were often selected to make this family member or that look good…or bad.

  "Would you like a history?" Auerbach finally asked.

  "A history?" Samantha replied, as the clatter of the last table being set up punctuated her question.

  "Yes. Sometimes people like us to include stills from a person's past—in this case your husband's. You know, if you have old yearbooks or albums or even home movies…"

  My God, Samantha thought, the little guy hit it right on the head, didn't he? A history. Now that would be a lark. Sure, he could do a history…if he could find it. She felt like telling him that, but didn't.

  "No, my husband is pretty shy about those things," she replied. "I'd better pass on it."

  "Okay. Of course, we could do it in titles alone."

  "I don't follow."

  "Just a stream of words showing his past, floating across the screen. Home town. College. Companies. Stuff like that."

  Samantha didn't know whether to laugh or cry, or do both at the same time. "I still think we'd better do without it," she said.

  "Fine," Auerbach said. "You may have an awfully cold tape, though. Like, just a lot of people buzzin' around."

  "I'll have to take that risk," Samantha told him. "It'll be a lively party. I think we'll have all the warmth we'll need."

  "I hear you," Auerbach said. He left a few minutes later.

  The workmen finished putting the white tablecloths on the tables and Samantha saw the elegance that Lynne had talked about. The apartment took on a formal quality, a brightness combined with high style. Samantha could imagine what the rest would look like—the place settings, the centerpieces, the silver service, the small band off to the side. It would have to be a party to remember.

  It would all work out.

  It had to.

  The police cruiser sped through Manhattan streets, its lights flashing and siren blaring. Traffic ahead lurched to the right to let it pass. Inside the cruiser, a young patrolman sat at the wheel.

  Spencer Cross-Wade sat in the back of the cruiser with Arthur Loggins. Cross-Wade gripped a large brown envelope in his right hand, gripped it tightly, as if it contained some state secret. Neither man spoke or gestured. They sat motionless, expressionless, contemplating what had just happened, how they would explain it, what it might lead to. Cross-Wade felt an embarrassment, a humiliation, that he had never experienced before, even during the darkest days of the calendar killer probe.

  The car lurched onto Central Park West and sped uptown. Now Cross-Wade dreaded what was about to happen. He phrased his words in his mind and silently rehearsed every point. He knew there was a ray of hope amidst the embarrassment, but he felt for Samantha, for she would bear the brunt of the latest bulletin.

  He had the doorman announce him by intercom. At first, Samantha was startled to hear that he'd returned. For a moment, in fact, she wondered if it was actually him. So he got on the intercom, assuring her, in his distinct style, that he had to see her on "police business."

  He and Loggins rushed to the apartment.

  Samantha opened.

  She had never seen Cross-Wade so grim, so ashen, so obviously agitated. It was about Marty. That had to be it.

  "Come in," she said nervously.

  The detectives entered. The workmen and Lynne had already left.

  "I'm sorry we had to disturb you," Cross-Wade said.

  "I understand," Samantha replied. "Please sit down."

  They all sat, and they all sensed it was no time for small talk. Cross-Wade turned immediately and urgently to Samantha, still clutching the brown envelope in his hand. "Mrs. Shaw," he said, "I know you're surprised to see us."

  "Yes," Samantha agreed.

  "I'm sure you wished we'd gone away and never returned."

  "Well, in a way." Samantha studied Cross-Wade's face closely and felt his distress. "I think you found out something about Marty," she said, "something that clears up a lot about his past. And I think it isn't good."

  "You're very perceptive," Cross-Wade answered.

  Samantha sighed. "I'd hoped his secrets were good secrets. What'd he do, steal some money?"

  Cross-Wade realized that Samantha didn't fully understand. She thought he'd simply discovered some minor transgression, some forgivable lapse.

  "You can tell me," she went on, when he didn't immediately answer. She felt a sudden depression. The high she'd been on as the party tables were set up fell apart. "I guess I'd have preferred finding out after the party, but I want to know."

  "Mrs. Shaw," Cross-Wade said, "before discussing this, I do want to be sure of something. May I see your bedroom again?"

  Samantha was startled. "Why?"

  "It's important."

  Without saying a word, Samantha led Cross-Wade to the bedroom. He had only to stand in the doorway. "Yes," he said after looking around, "we're right."

  "About what?" Samantha asked.

  Before answering, Cross-Wade led Samantha back to the couch. He sat close to her. "Madam," he said, "as you know, I canceled the investigation of your husband after we received those medical records. It was the proper move."

  "Of course."

  "But, the way things are in the bureaucracy, some actions just went forward automatically. I had asked the Omaha authorities for pictures of Frankie Nelson's house, inside and out. They supplied the outside pictures, but neglected the interiors. So, last week I asked again for pictures of the inside. They finally arrived today. I have them here." He raised the brown envelope.

  "So?" Samantha asked.

  Slowly, grimly, Cross-Wade opened the envelope. Inside was a set of eight-by-ten glossies. He gently handed them to Samantha.

  She gazed down.

  Her eyes widened.

  "Oh my God," she whispered. She looked up at Cross-Wade in sudden panic. "Oh my good God!"

  Cross-Wade just nodded, agreeing with her reaction.

  She studied the pictures once more, holding one up. It showed a bedroom in the old Nelson house—arranged precisely as Marty had arranged the bedroom in the apartment. On one wall was the gaudy picture frame, identical to the one Marty had put up.

  There was even the same obstructing of the windows and radiators by furniture, the same bizarre layout.

  And there was, in another picture, the RCA Model 30, ancient, dusty, but recognizable.

  Samantha shook her head, dismayed, shocked, baffled by it all. "I don't understand," she said.

  "It's self-evident," Cross-Wade replied.

  "But…you have his medical records."

  "We thought so."

  "Thought?"

  Cross-Wade had a forlorn look as he tried to explain to Samantha. "Mrs. Shaw," he said, "I've been in police work long enough to know that not everyone in our profession is completely reliable. Yes, we received a set of records with the name of Frankie Nelson on them. We compared them with Marty's and they didn't match. But when we look at your bedroom, and then at these pictures of the Nelson house, the truth becomes clear. Why didn't the medical records match? I suspect we were sent the wrong reco
rds, mislabeled with the Nelson name. Someone simply made a mistake. Mrs. Shaw, your husband is Frankie Nelson."

  Samantha got up slowly and walked back to the bedroom. Cross-Wade and Loggins followed her, not saying a word. Samantha gazed around the room, then down at the photos, which she still held. "Why would Marty do this?" she asked, accepting the basic facts. "Why would he decorate the room the same way?"

  "I would surmise it's part of some ritual," Cross-Wade answered. "Perhaps it reflects an attachment to his youth, the youth that existed before…"

  "Before he saw his mother murder his father," Samantha said.

  "I'm afraid that is the situation we must face."

  Samantha lowered her head. "A murderer," she whispered bitterly. "I thought we'd jumped that hurdle. My husband is a murderer." She felt slightly faint and rushed to sit down on the bed. "I can't believe it."

  "That's human," Cross-Wade told her, his voice filled with a genuine sympathy. He knew he'd taken Samantha on a roller-coaster ride, first suspecting Marty, then exonerating him, now accusing him again. It had been savage, if unintended. "I know this has been very difficult for you," he went on. "You've been brave. You'll have to be brave a little longer."

  Samantha knew what Cross-Wade was saying. It was December fourth. "I guess I'm a target," she said. "His target."

  "We must assume that. It's all in his mind. You're simply not his wife any longer. Now…" Cross-Wade hesitated. He was entering the vague recesses of Marty Shaw's abnormal psyche. "Now," he continued, "you've become his mother."

  Samantha simply stared. "His mother," she repeated. "Isn't that just fine? I've got two babies… and one carries a hammer and chain."

  Cross-Wade and Loggins glanced at each other briefly, each almost wishing he could take Samantha's hurt on himself.

  "Well," Samantha asked, "what do you want me to do?"

  "I want you to help us stop your husband," Cross-Wade answered.

  "Me? Stop him? Why don't you just arrest him for his other murders?"

  "Because," Cross-Wade sighed, "we still don't have a single shred of hard evidence linking your husband to those murders. The evidence is all circumstantial. We need something solid."

  "And I'm to help you get it."

  "Yes," Cross-Wade said. "Mrs. Shaw, I know what's going through your mind. This is the end of your marriage."

  Again, as on earlier occasions, the tears started filling Samantha's eyes. Cross-Wade had stated the reality so well. "Yes," she said softly.

  "I would want only to leave you alone, not to bother you in these sad circumstances," Cross-Wade went on. "But we can't confront your husband before the party and charge him. He'd never admit anything and we might lose the whole case."

  "How do you do it then?"

  "By asking you to go through with the party as if nothing has happened, and letting him reveal himself tomorrow, his crucial day, December fifth."

  "Jesus."

  "I know it's hard, but we must make an airtight case. It's for your own safety. Marty's a threat to you…and to the baby."

  That one hit home. It jolted Samantha into facing what Cross-Wade wanted her to face. The baby. Something could happen to the baby if Marty weren't stopped, if he somehow escaped prosecution. She now wanted that baby so much. Even if she couldn't share it with Marty, the Marty she thought had been, she still wanted it. It was a part of her now. She had to protect it.

  "We'll have the apartment entirely covered," Cross-Wade continued. "It'll be wired with our advanced sound equipment. We'll be down the hall in the apartment where the residents are away. When something begins to happen here, we'll be in within seconds. Everything will be on tape. Marty will be caught."

  "Trying to kill me?" Samantha asked, shocked as she visualized the scene.

  "We'd never let it go that far. We're very good at what we do."

  "I can't believe he'd do it during the party," Samantha said.

  "Neither can I," Cross-Wade agreed. "He'll undoubtedly make his move after the guests leave, but before midnight of the fifth. However, we'll have him under surveillance the entire day. Indeed, we'll have one additional form of protection. In the morning, before Marty leaves for work, a telephone repairman will be in your apartment, supposedly to make a repair on a circuit. Of course, hell actually be one of our men."

  Samantha glanced at her watch, her hand shaking, her arm coated with the first glisten of a cold sweat. "It'll all be over in a little more than thirty-two hours," she said. She buried her head in her hands. "Marty will be out of my life."

  "It gives me no pleasure," Cross-Wade told her. "But I hope I can have your help."

  "Yes," Samantha muttered. Now the anger she'd previously felt when Marty was under suspicion began to surface again. He'd betrayed her. He'd betrayed her by being something other than what she'd thought. "I'll help," she said, her voice trembling.

  "You're a great lady," Cross-Wade said.

  They spoke for a few more minutes and Cross-Wade called his headquarters to order the sound equipment installed in Samantha's apartment. He also ordered visual surveillance of Marty resumed upon Marty's return, and alerted a squad of men to spend all of December fifth in an apartment on Samantha's floor, prepared to protect her in an instant. Then he returned to Samantha, who now had drifted back to the living room with Loggins. She was sitting on the couch, staring at all the preparations for the party, all the useless, meaningless gaiety.

  "Madam," Cross-Wade told her, "I think it's wise that I take the photographs back. We wouldn't want your husband to discover them."

  Samantha hardly realized she was still holding the pictures. She handed them over, and Cross-Wade instantly saw that the side of the envelope was crumpled and almost punched through from Samantha's tight, horrified grip.

  "Do you have to leave now?" she asked, not really wanting to be alone.

  "We must," Cross-Wade told her. "We have procedures to prepare."

  "Yes, procedures," Samantha lamented. "Always procedures."

  "You know, Mrs. Shaw," Cross-Wade said gently, "it has been my lot to visit many women who've suddenly found themselves without partners. Normally it's a murder situation. I've seen their despair and their emptiness. But there is a tomorrow. Believe me. The wound will never heal completely, but there will be an easing. Even now, you must think about tomorrow. For the baby."

  Samantha barely comprehended Cross-Wade's words, so completely was she absorbed by the shock she'd just received. He was so decent a man, so caring, so unlike the stereotype of the tough, indifferent cop. But for now the only "tomorrow" that mattered was December fifth. "I appreciate your thoughts," she answered him. "It's hard for me to think right now." Cross-Wade nodded his sympathy. "We'll be in close contact," he said. "We must have our equipment in here before your husband comes home. Once the clock strikes December fifth, everything has to be heard by our men…even when you're sleeping."

  "I understand."

  "We wish you the best, Mrs. Shaw."

  And then Cross-Wade and Loggins left.

  Samantha heard only silence.

  Everything had changed once more. In the course of a few minutes her hope that Marty's secrets were good secrets had been dashed. His secrets weren't good secrets. They were the worst kind of secrets. She contemplated the horror of what she faced—watching the police take him away, answering the probing questions from Lynne and other friends and neighbors, the whispers, the speculation about her and her part in the ugly mess. She'd have to move. No doubt about that. She'd have to give up the life she'd dreamed of for years. And she'd have to face the loneliness again.

  She looked down at her stomach and wondered whether the baby had some way of knowing that something was wrong. She'd once heard that babies in the womb could feel the tension of the mother. Would the baby be hurt by this? Would there be some psychological damage that would come out years later?

  Would the baby ultimately blame her for what was happening to its father?

  My God, Sama
ntha thought, it could be a replay. Maybe the baby would blame her, the way Marty blamed his own mother.

  Samantha suddenly had the terrifying thought that she might be afraid of her own child.

  This couldn't be happening, she said to herself over and over, as she had before.

  There had to be a way out.

  Somewhere there was a glimmer of light.

  Maybe…just maybe Cross-Wade had made another mistake.

  Her rational side didn't believe that for a moment, but part of her had to believe it to survive.

  Exhausted, she fell asleep.

  16

  December Fifth

  The Day came.

  It would appear, if Marty Shaw had his way, on Samantha's tombstone.

  It would appear, if Spencer Cross-Wade had his way, on a commendation marking the date he solved a major mass murder.

  It would appear, if Samantha had her way, on nothing out of the ordinary—for she wished the whole nightmare would go away.

  The day was cold, with occasional driving rain that cut through to the bone and turned a brief walk outside into shivering misery. Tom Edwards had been right. It wasn't a day to serve ice cream for dessert.

  The rain pelted against the windows of the Shaw apartment as Marty and Samantha awakened. Marty staggered to the window and looked out, gazing at a sea of gray that blocked every building on the New York skyline. "Great day!" he exclaimed, and smiled back at Samantha. She looked skeptically at him, determined to play the part Cross-Wade asked her to play. "No, I mean it!" Marty said. "The hell with the weather. This is a great day for both of us!"

  Samantha smiled, forcing it. "You're right. Happy birthday, love!" She rushed out of bed to kiss him, and gave him an embrace that any man would remember. God, she thought, this is sick. The man is a monster, and I'm kissing him.

  And yet, she still had something for Marty inside. She couldn't erase it. This was a form of torture.

  The doorbell rang.

  Marty frowned. "At this hour?" he asked, seemingly annoyed that this great day was being disrupted right at the start. "Don't the doormen announce people anymore?" He started for the door.

  "Oh, wait," Samantha interrupted. "I think I know who that is."