Silent Night

by Mary Higgins Clark

  Twenty minutes later, as she studied the school reports of a seventeen-year-old patient, she heard the first of the promos. Now let’s keep our fingers crossed that someone who knows something about the case is listening too, she thought.

  2

  It was definitely a lucky stroke that his car radio had been tuned to the talk radio station on Friday; otherwise he’d never have heard the announcement. As it was, traffic had slowed to a crawl, and he was barely listening. But at the mention of the name Regina Clausen, he had turned up the volume and concentrated intently.

  Not that there was anything to worry about, of course. He reassured himself of that. After all, Regina had been the easiest, the most eager to comply and fall in with his plans, the most anxious to agree that no hint of their shipboard romance be apparent to others.

  As always, he had taken every precaution. Hadn’t he?

  Now, hearing the promo again Monday morning, he became less sure. Next time he’d be especially careful. But then, the next one would be the last. There had been four so far. One more to go. He’d select her next week, and once she was his, his mission would be complete and he would finally be at peace.

  Of course he had made no mistakes. It was his mission, and no one was going to stop him. Angrily he listened again to the promo, and to the warm, encouraging voice of Dr. Susan Chandler: “Regina Clausen was a renowed investment advisor. Beyond that, she was a daughter, a friend, and an extremely generous benefactor of numerous charities. We’ll be talking about her disappearance on my show today. We’d like to solve the mystery. Maybe one of you has a piece of the puzzle. Listen in, please.”

  He snapped off the radio. “Dr. Susan,” he said aloud, “get off it and fast. All this is none of your business, and I warn you, if I have to make you my business, your days are numbered.”

  3

  Dr. Donald Richards, the author of Vanishing Women and her guest for the day, was already in the studio when Susan arrived. He was tall and lean, with dark brown hair, and appeared to be in his late thirties. He pulled off his reading glasses as he stood up to greet her. His blue eyes were warm and his smile brief as he took the hand she extended to him. “Dr. Chandler, I warn you. This is my first book. I’m new at this publicity business and I’m nervous. If I get tongue-tied, promise you’ll rescue me.”

  Susan laughed. “Dr. Richards, the name is Susan, and just don’t think about the microphone. Pretend we’re hanging over the back fence and gossiping.”

  Who’s he kidding? she wondered fifteen minutes later, as Richards discussed with calm and easy authority the true-life cases in his book. She nodded in agreement as he said, “When someone vanishes—I’m talking now, of course, of an adult, not a child—the question the authorities first ask is if the disappearance was voluntary. As you know, Susan, it’s surprising just how many people suddenly decide to do a U-turn on their way home and start a whole new life, take on a whole new existence. Usually it’s because of marital or financial problems, and it’s a pretty cowardly way out—but it does happen. Whatever the circumstances, however, the first step to tracing someone who has disappeared is to see if charges start to show up on their credit cards.”

  “Either charged by them or by someone who stole those cards,” Susan interjected.

  “That’s right,” Richards agreed. “And usually when we encounter a voluntary disappearance we find the person just couldn’t face whatever it is that’s troubling him or her for another day. This kind of disappearance is really a cry for help. Of course, some disappearances are not voluntary; some involve foul play. That, however, is not always easy to determine. It’s very difficult, for example, to prove someone guilty of murder if the body is never found. The murderers who don’t get convicted are often the ones who dispose of their victims so thoroughly that proof of death cannot be established. For example . . .”

  They discussed several of the open cases he’d covered in his book, instances in which the victim had never been found. Then Susan said, “To remind my audience, we’re talking with Dr. Donald Richards, criminologist, psychiatrist, and author of Vanishing Women, a fascinating and totally accessible book of case histories of women who have disappeared, all of them in the last ten years. Now I’d like your opinion, Dr. Richards, on a case that is not covered in your book, that of Regina Clausen. Let me fill our listeners in on the circumstances of her disappearance.”

  Susan did not need to consult her notes. “Regina Clausen was a highly respected investment advisor with Lang Taylor Securities. At the time of her disappearance, she was forty-three years old, and, according to those who knew her, very shy in her personal life. She lived alone and usually took vacations with her mother. Three years ago, her mother was recovering from a broken ankle, so Regina Clausen went alone on a segment of the world cruise of the luxury liner Gabrielle. She embarked in Perth, planning to sail to Bali, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Japan, and disembark in Honolulu. However, in Hong Kong she got off the ship, saying that she was going to spend extra time there and rejoin the Gabrielle when it docked in Japan. That kind of alteration of itinerary is the sort of thing seasoned travelers regularly do, so her announced plan aroused no suspicions. Regina took only one suitcase and a carry-on with her when she disembarked, and she was reported to have been in good spirits, and appeared very happy. She took a cab to the Peninsula Hotel, checked in, dropped her bags in her room, and left the hotel immediately. She was never seen again.

  “Dr. Richards, if you were just starting to investigate this case, what would you do?”

  “I’d want to see that passenger list and find out if anyone else arranged to stay in Hong Kong,” Richards said promptly. “I’d want to know if she received phone calls or faxes on the ship. The communications office would have records. I’d want to question her fellow passengers to see if anyone noticed that she had been getting particularly friendly with someone, most likely a man, also traveling alone.”

  Richards paused. “That’s for openers.”

  “All of that was done,” Susan told him. “A thorough investigation was undertaken, working through the steamship company and private investigators, and through the authorities in Hong Kong. Three years ago, the British were still in charge there. All that could be determined for certain was that Regina Clausen vanished the moment she left that hotel.”

  “I’d say she was meeting someone and went to great pains to keep it a secret,” Richards said. “It could have been a shipboard romance. I assume that angle was investigated.”

  “Yes, but none of the other passengers noticed her spending time with anyone in particular,” Susan told him.

  “Then she may have planned to meet someone in Hong Kong and for her own reasons wanted her decision to leave the ship there and catch up with it later to appear spontaneous,” Richards suggested.

  In her headphones, Susan heard a signal from the producer that calls were waiting. “Now, after these messages, let’s go to the phones,” she said.

  She pulled off her earphones. “A couple of messages otherwise known as commercials. They pay the bills.”

  Richards nodded. “Nothing wrong with that. I was out of the country when the Clausen case was in the news, but it is an interesting one. From the little I know of it, however, I’d guess it’s a guy who’s to blame. A shy, lonely woman is particularly vulnerable when she’s out of a familiar environment in which she has the reassurance and security of her job and family.”

  You must know my mother and sister, Susan thought wryly.

  “Get ready. We’re about to go back on air. We take fifteen minutes of questions,” she said, “then that’s it. I’ll answer, then we’ll both field.”

  “Whatever you say.”

  They put on their headphones, through which they heard the ten-second countdown. Then she began. “Dr. Susan Chandler with you again. My guest is Dr. Donald Richards, criminologist, psychiatrist, author of Vanishing Women. Before the break we were discussing the case of socialite stockbroker Regina Clausen, who
disappeared in Hong Kong three years ago while on a segment of a world cruise of the luxury liner Gabrielle. Now why don’t we go to our phones?” She looked at the monitor. “We have a call from Louise, in Fort Lee. You’re on, Louise.”

  The calls were run of the mill: “How can such smart women make the mistake of being taken in by a killer?”

  “What does Dr. Richards think of the Jimmy Hoffa case?”

  “Isn’t it a fact that even years later, because of DNA, the identity of a skeleton can be established?”

  And then there was time for a final commercial and one more call.

  During the break, the producer spoke to Susan from the control room. “There’s one final call I want to put through. I warn you though, whoever it is, she’s blocked off our Caller ID from her end. At first we weren’t going to put her on, but she says she may know something about Regina Clausen’s disappearance, so it’s worth paying attention. She said to call her Karen. It’s not her name.”

  “Put her on,” Susan said. As the on-air light flashed, she spoke into the microphone: “Karen is our last caller, and my producer tells me she may have something important to tell us. Hello, Karen.”

  The caller spoke with a husky voice, almost too low to hear. “Dr. Susan, I took a segment of a round-the-world cruise two years ago. I was feeling pretty rotten because I was in the middle of a divorce. My husband’s jealousy had become intolerable. There was a man on the trip. He made a big play for me, but he did it in a quiet, even discreet, way. At the places we docked, he’d have me meet him at some designated spot away from the ship, and we’d explore that port together. Then later we’d split up and return to the ship separately. He said the reason for such secrecy was that he hated exposing us to gossip. He was quite charming and very attentive, something I needed very badly at the time. Then he suggested that I leave the ship in Athens and spend more time there. Then we were going to fly to Algiers, and I could pick up the ship in Tangier.”

  Susan was reminded of the feeling she had gotten when she was in the prosecutor’s office and was on the verge of learning something meaningful from a witness. She realized that Donald Richards was leaning forward as well, straining to catch every word. “Did you do what this man suggested?” she asked.

  “I was going to, but my husband phoned just then and begged me to give our marriage another chance. The man I was planning to meet had already disembarked. I tried to phone to say I was staying on the ship, but he wasn’t registered at the hotel where he said he’d be staying, so I never saw him again. But I do have a photo with him in the background, and he gave me a ring that was inscribed ‘You belong to me,’ which, of course, I never got to return.”

  Susan chose her words carefully. “Karen, what you’re telling us may be very important in the investigation of Regina Clausen’s disappearance. Will you meet me and show me that ring and photograph?”

  “I . . . I can’t get involved. My husband would be furious if he knew I’d even considered changing my plans because I’d met someone.”

  There’s something she isn’t telling us, Susan thought. Her name isn’t Karen, and she’s been trying to disguise her voice. And soon she’s going to hang up.

  “Karen, please come to my office,” Susan said quickly. “Here’s the address.” She rattled it off, then added, her voice pleading, “Regina Clausen’s mother needs to find out what happened to her daughter. I promise, I’ll protect your privacy.”

  “I’ll be there at three o’clock.” The connection was broken.

  4

  Carolyn Wells turned off the radio and walked nervously to the window. Across the street, the Metropolitan Museum of Art was blanketed in the quiet typical of Monday, its closing day.

  Since making that phone call to the Ask Dr. Susan radio show, she’d been unable to shake off a terrible sense of foreboding.

  If only we hadn’t teased Pamela to do one of her readings for us, she thought, remembering the unsettling events of the previous Friday evening. She had cooked a fortieth birthday dinner for her former roommate Pamela, and had invited as well the other two women with whom they used to share an apartment on East Eightieth Street. The group included Pamela, now a college professor; Lynn, partner in a public relations firm; Vickie, a cable TV anchor-woman; and herself, an interior designer.

  They had decreed it to be a girls’ night in, which meant no husbands or boyfriends, and the four of them had gossiped with the easy comfort of old friends.

  They hadn’t asked Pamela to do a reading for years. When they were younger and new to the city, they had almost made a ritual of somewhat jokingly asking her to assess their future with the new boyfriend, or the new job offer. Later, though, her powers had been treated more seriously. A fact that Pamela no longer even liked to acknowledge was that her gift of second sight caused her to be called upon, however discreetly, by the police in cases of kidnappings and missing persons. But her friends knew that while sometimes she could not help with the investigation, at other times she was able to “see” with stunning accuracy details that had helped to solve disappearances.

  Then after dinner last Friday, when they’d all been relaxing with a glass of port, Pamela had relented and agreed to do a quick reading for each of them. As usual, she asked each woman to choose a personal object for her to hold while she did their individual readings.

  I was the last, Carolyn thought, remembering the emotions aroused by that night, and something told me not to have a reading. And why did I pick out that damn ring for her to hold? I never actually wore it, and it’s certainly not valuable. I don’t even know why I’ve kept it.

  The fact was she had plucked the ring out of her costume-jewelry box that night because, earlier in the day, she had had Owen Adams, the man who had given it to her, on her mind. She knew why she had been thinking about him. It was just two years ago that she had met him.

  When Pamela held the ring, she had noticed the almost illegible inscription inside the band and had examined it closely.

  “‘You belong to me,’” she had read, her tone half amused, half horrified. “A little strong in this day and age, isn’t it, Carolyn? I hope Justin meant it as a joke?”

  Carolyn remembered her discomfort. “Justin doesn’t know a thing about it. Back when we were separated, some guy gave it to me on a cruise. I’d just met him, so I didn’t really know him; but I’ve always been curious about what happened to him. He’s been on my mind lately.”

  Pamela had closed her hand over the ring, and in an instant a perceptible change came over her. Her whole body became tense, and the expression on her face was suddenly grave. “Carolyn, this ring could have been the cause of your death,” she said. “It may still be. Whoever gave it to you meant to harm you.” Then, as though it were burning her hand, she dropped the ring on the coffee table.

  It was at that moment that the key had turned in the door, and they had all jumped like guilty school-girls caught being naughty. By unspoken consent, they immediately changed the subject. They all knew that the separation was a taboo subject for Justin, and they knew as well that he had no use for Pamela’s readings.

  Carolyn remembered how she had quickly scooped up the ring and put it in her pocket. It was still there.

  Justin’s excessive jealously had been the cause of the breakup two years ago. Carolyn finally had had enough. “I can’t live with someone who is always suspicious if I’m a few minutes late,” she had told him. “I have a job—make that a career—and if I’m stuck in the office because of a problem, then that’s the way it is.”

  The day he called her on the ship, he had promised to change. And God knows he’s tried, Carolyn thought. He’s been in therapy, but if I get involved in this Dr. Susan thing, he’ll think there really was something between Owen Adams and me, and we’ll be back to square one.

  She made a sudden decision. She wouldn’t keep the appointment with Susan Chandler. Instead, she would send her the shipboard picture taken at the captain’s cocktail party, the pi
cture that showed Owen Adams in the background. She’d crop it so that she wasn’t in the picture, and she’d send it, along with the ring and Owen’s name, to Chandler. I’ll print a note on plain paper, she thought, so they’ll never be able to trace it to me. And I’ll keep it short and simple.

  If there was any tie between Owen Adams and Regina Clausen, it would be up to Chandler to find it. It would only look ridiculous for Carolyn to write that a psychic friend had claimed the ring was a symbol of death! Nobody would take that seriously.

  5

  “This is Dr. Susan Chandler, thanking our guest, Dr. Donald Richards, and all of you for being with me today.”

  The red on-air signal went dark. Susan pulled off her headphones. “Well, that’s it,” she said.

  Her producer, Jed Geany, came into the studio. “Do you think that woman was on the level, Susan?”

  “Yes, I do. I can only hope she doesn’t change her mind about meeting me.”

  Donald Richards left the studio with Susan and waited while she hailed a cab. As she got in, he said hesitantly, “I think it’s less than fifty-fifty that Karen will come to see you. If she does, though, I’d like to talk with you about what she has to say. Maybe I can help.”

  Susan didn’t understand why she felt an immediate flash of resentment.

  “Let’s see what happens,” she said, her tone noncommittal.

  “Meaning ‘don’t butt in,’” Richards said quietly. “I hope she shows up. Here’s your cab.”

  Look for

  You Belong to Me

  Praise for the Queen of Suspense

  MARY HIGGINS CLARK

  AND