All Around the Town (27 page)

"Bic, you don't mean to face her."

"I know what I mean. Opal. We'll both be conservatively dressed. We won't talk about prayer or God, much as it hurts me not to bring the Lord into our every activity. The point is, we must befriend her. Then, just in case she does get too much memory back, we'll be all mixed up in her mind. We won't stay long. We'll apologize for intruding and take our leave. Now try this on and let's see how cute you look."

He handed her a box. She opened it and took out a wig. She went to the mirror, put it on and adjusted it, then turned for him to see. "My Lord, it's just perfect," he observed.

The phone rang. Opal picked it up.

It was Rodney Harper from station WLIS in Bethlehem.

"You remember me?" he asked. "I was the station manager when you broadcast from here all those years ago. Proud to say I own the place now."

Opal motioned for Bic to pick up the extension as she said, "Rodney Harper. Of course I remember you."

"Been meaning to congratulate you on all your success. You folks have sure gone a long way. Reason I called today is that a woman from People magazine was in here talking to me about you."

Opal and Bic exchanged glances. "What did she ask?"

"Oh just about what kind of folks you were. I said Bobby was the best damn preacher we ever had in these parts. Then she wanted to know if I had a picture of you from those days."

Opal saw the sudden alarm on Bic's face and knew it mirrored her own. "And did you?"

"I'm sorry to say we can't find a one. We moved the station to a new facility about ten years ago and got rid of a heap of stuff. I guess your pictures got caught in the throwaway bags."

"Oh that doesn't matter," Opal said as she felt her stomach muscles begin to relax. "Wait a minute. Bobby's on the line and wants to say hello."

Bic cut in with a robust greeting. "Rodney, my friend, it's a treat to hear your voice. I'll never forget you gave us our first big break. If we hadn't been in Bethlehem on your station and getting known, I don't know we'd be on the 'Church of the Airways' today. Even so, if you do come across some old picture, I'd appreciate if you just tore it up. Looked too dam much like a hippie in those days, and it kind of doesn't go with preaching to the older folks in the 'Church of the Airways.'"

"Sure, Bobby. Just one thing I hope you won't mind. I did take that reporter from People to see the farmhouse where you lived those two years you were with us. Son of a gun. I missed the fact it had burned down. Kids or some burn, I suppose, broke in and got careless with matches."

Bic rounded his thumb and first finger, then winked at Opal.

"These things happen, but I'm real sorry to hear that. Carla and I loved that snug little place."

"Well, they took a couple of pictures of the property. I heard the reporter say she wasn't sure if she'd even use them in the article, but at least the chicken coop was still standing and that was proof enough for anyone that you came from humble beginnings."

Chapter
88

KAREN GRANT reached her desk at nine o'clock and sighed with relief that Anne Webster wasn't already in the office. Karen was having a hard time hiding her anger at the agency's retiring owner. Webster did not want to complete the sale of the agency to Karen until mid-August. She had been invited on an inaugural flight of New World Airlines to Australia and didn't intend to miss it. Karen had been hoping to go on that one. Edwin had been invited too, and they'd planned to enjoy it together.

Karen had told Anne that there was really no need for her to come in to the office anymore. Business was slow and Karen could handle it herself. After all, Anne was almost seventy, and the trip from Bronxville to the city was taxing. But Anne was proving unexpectedly stubborn about hanging on and was making a crusade of taking regular clients out to lunch and assuring them that Karen would take just as good care of them as she had.

Of course there was a reason for that. For three years Webster would get a percentage of the profits, and there was no question that even though the travel business had been abysmal for nearly two years, the mood was changing and people were starting to do more traveling.

As soon as Anne was totally out of the way, Edwin could use her office. But they'd wait until the late fall to move in together. It would look better for Karen to testify as the grieving widow at Laurie Kenyon's trial. Except for Anne hanging around and that damn detective dropping in so much, Karen was blissfully happy. She was so crazy about Edwin. Allan's trust fund was now in her name. One hundred thousand or better a year for the next twenty years, and in the meantime those stocks were increasing in value. In a way she wasn't sorry not to get the principal now. She might not always be crazy about Edwin, and if anything, his tastes were more expensive than hers.

She loved jewelry. It was hard to pass the L.Crown boutique in the lobby without looking in the showcase. It used to be that when she bought something that caught her eye she'd worry that one day Allan would come out of his dream world and ask to see the bankbook. He believed she was putting the bulk of the trust fund money in a savings account. Now she didn't have that worry, and between Allan's life insurance and the trust fund, he'd left her in great shape. When that damn house in Clinton sold, she was going to treat herself to an emerald necklace. Trouble was, a lot of people were squeamish about buying a house where someone had been murdered. She'd already reduced the selling price twice.

This morning she was debating about what to give Edwin for his birthday. Well, she still had two weeks to make up her mind.

The door opened. Karen forced a welcoming smile as Anne Webster came in. Now I'll hear how she didn't sleep well last night but got her usual nap on the train, she thought.

"Good morning, Karen. My, don't you look lovely. Is that another new dress?"

"Yes, I just got it yesterday." Karen couldn't resist telling the designer's name. "It's a Scaasi."

"It looks it." Anne sighed and brushed back a strand of gray hair that had escaped from the braid that circled the top of her head. "My, I'm feeling my age this morning. Awake half the night and then, as usual, dead asleep on the train. I was sitting next to Ed Anderson, my next-door neighbor. He always calls me the sleeping beauty and says that someday I'll wake up in the freight yard."

Karen laughed with her. My God, how many times more do I have to hear the sleeping beauty story? she thought. Only three weeks, she promised herself. The day we close the deal, Anne Webster will be history.

On the other hand... This time she gave Anne a genuinely warm smile. "You are a sleeping beauty!"

They chuckled together.

Chapter
89

BRENDON MOODY was watching when, at quarter of ten, Connie Santini, the secretary, came in and Karen Grant left the travel agency office. Something was bothering him about Anne Webster's account of the evening she had spent with Karen Grant at Newark Airport. He had talked to Webster a week ago, and today he wanted to talk to her again. He walked over to the agency. As he opened the door, he attempted to plaster on his face the smile of a casual visitor. "Good morning, Mrs. Webster. I was passing this way and thought I'd drop by. You're looking well. It's good to see you again. I was afraid that by now you'd be retired."

"How nice of you to remember, Mr. Moody. No, I decided to wait and have the closing in mid-August. Frankly right now business is really picking up and I sometimes wonder if I should have held off selling. But then when I get up in the morning and rush for a train and leave my husband reading the papers over coffee, I say, enough's enough."

"Well, you and Karen Grant certainly know how to give custom service," Moody commented as he sank into a chair. "Remember you told me that the night Professor Grant died, you and Karen were at Newark Airport? Not too many travel agents will personally go to the airport to meet even the very best client."

Anne Webster looked pleased at the compliment. "The lady we met is quite elderly," she said. "She loves to travel and usually has a contingent of friends and relatives with her, at her expense. Last year we booked her and eight others at full first-class fare on a round-the-world cruise. The night we met her, she had cut short a trip and returned alone because she wasn't feeling well. Her chauffeur happened to be away, so we volunteered to pick her up at the airport. It's little enough to do to keep her happy. Karen drove and I sat in back talking to her."

"The plane arrived at nine-thirty, as I remember," Brendon said casually.

"No. It was supposed to arrive at nine-thirty. We got to the airport at nine. The flight had been delayed in London. They said it would get in at ten, so we went to the VIP Lounge."

Brendon consulted his notes. "Then, according to your statement, it did arrive at ten."

Anne Webster looked embarrassed. "I was wrong. I thought about it later and realized it was nearly twelve-thirty."

"Twelve-thirty!"

"Yes. When we reached the lounge they said that the computers were down and there would be that long a delay. But Karen and I were watching a film on the TV in the lounge, so the time passed very quickly."

"I'll bet it did." The secretary laughed. "Now Mrs. Webster, you know you probably slept through the whole thing."

"I certainly did not," Anne Webster said indignantly. "They had Spartacus on. That was my favorite movie years ago, and now they've restored the footage that had been cut out. I never closed an eye."

Moody let it go. "Karen Grant has a friend Edwin who's a travel writer, doesn't she?" He did not miss the expression on the secretary's face, the tightened lips. She was the one he wanted to question when she was alone.

"Mr. Moody, a woman in business meets many men. She may have lunch or dinner with them, and it does offend me that in this day and age anyone can read anything improper in their meetings." Anne Webster was adamant. "Karen Grant is an attractive, hardworking young woman. She was married to a brilliant professor who understood her need to carve out her own life. He had an independent income and was extremely generous to her. She always talked about Allan in the most glowing terms. Her relationships with other men were totally on the up-and-up."

Connie Santini's desk was behind and to the right of Webster's. Catching Brendon's glance, she raised her eyes to heaven in the classic expression of total disbelief.

Chapter
90

THE JULY 8 staff meeting at the clinic was almost over. There was only one patient left to discuss---Laurie Kenyon. As Justin Donnelly well knew, her case was the one that had engrossed everyone.

"We're making breakthroughs," he said. "Maybe even significant breakthroughs to what happened to her in those missing two years. The problem is that we don't have enough time. Laurie will go home this afternoon and will be an outpatient from now on. In a few weeks she'll go to court and plead guilty to manslaughter. The deadline from the prosecutor on the plea offer to manslaughter expires then."

The room was quiet. In addition to Dr. Donnelly, there were four others at the conference table: two psychiatrists, the art therapist, and the journal therapist. Kathie, the journal therapist, shook her head. "Doctor, it doesn't matter which alter personality writes in the journal, not one of them admits killing Allan Grant."

"I know that," Justin said. "I've asked Laurie to let us take her to Grant's house in Clinton to act out what happened that night. She certainly gave us a vivid picture of being in that rocking chair on someone's lap during abreaction, but she's stonewalling me on doing the same thing with Grant's death."

"Which suggests that neither she nor her alters want to remember what happened there?"

"Possibly."

"Doctor, her recent drawings have been much more detailed when she does the stick figure of a woman. Look at these." Pat, the art therapist, passed some of them around. "Now they really look as though the figure of the woman is wearing a pendant of some sort. Will she talk about that?"

"No. All she says is that's it's clear she's no artist."

WHEN LAURIE came to Justin's office an hour later, she was wearing a pale pink linen jacket and pleated white skirt. Sarah was with her and acknowledged Justin's compliment on the outfit with quiet pleasure. "It caught my eye when I was shopping last night," she explained, "and this is an important day."

"Freedom," Laurie said quietly, "brief, frightening, but still welcome."

Then Laurie unexpectedly said, "Maybe it's about time I tried your couch. Doctor."

Justin tried to sound offhand. "Be my guest. Any reason why today?"

She kicked off her shoes and stretched out. "Maybe it's just that I'm so comfortable with you two, and I feel like my old self in this new outfit, plus it will be nice to see the house again before we move." She hesitated. "Sarah tells me that after I plead guilty I'll have about six weeks before sentencing. The prosecutor has agreed to consent before the judge to my remaining free on bail till the sentence. I know that the minute I'm sentenced I have to go to prison, so I'm going to have a wonderful time for those six weeks. We're going to play golf and we're going to fix up the condominium so I'll be able to think about it while I'm away."

"I hope you're not going to forget to come in for your sessions with me, Laurie."