On the Street Where you Live (29 page)

“He's the nicest person in the world,” Pat Glynn said fiercely.
“Everybody
looks to him for help. And he's so fair. He'll tell people not to rush into buying a house, or if he thinks they're really not happy with the one they put a deposit on, he does everything to get them their money back. And he . . .”

The key phrase Reba had heard was “everyone looks to him for help.” She knew that was where the story would be.

“I guess you're saying that he's a shoulder to cry on for lots of people,” she suggested. “Or the kind of guy who gives you that spot loan when you need a few bucks, or cuts his fee for—”

“Oh, he's definitely a shoulder to cry on,” Pat Glynn said with a misty smile. Then the smile vanished. “People take advantage of that.”

“I know,” Reba sympathized. “Is there anyone who's been overdoing it lately?”

“Natalie Frieze certainly is.”

Natalie Frieze. She's the wife of Bob Frieze, the owner of The Seasoner, Reba recalled. They had been
guests at the Lawrence home the night before Martha disappeared.

Pat Glynn warmed to the subject. For the last twenty-four hours, since she had seen Natalie Frieze kiss Will Stafford so warmly, and then go out to lunch with him for the second time in a week, Pat's moods had been alternating between fury and misery.

Absolutely, totally in love with her boss, her earlier admiration for Natalie Frieze had completely disappeared and changed into intense dislike.

“Nobody
around here likes her. She's a big showoff, marching around town all dressed up every day as if she's on her way to Cirque 2000. Yesterday she was playing up to Mr. Stafford, trying to get sympathy. She showed him how her husband had bruised her wrist.”

“He
bruised
it? Deliberately?”

“I don't know. Could be. It was swollen and purple. She told me how much it was hurting her.” Looking into Reba's sympathetic eyes was like going to confession. Pat Glynn took a deep breath and plunged ahead. “Yesterday, as they were leaving here, Mr. Stafford told me he'd be back in an hour. Natalie Frieze smirked and said, ‘Make that an hour and a half.' And he was
really
busy, too. He had a lot of work on his desk.”

“Does he have a girlfriend?” Reba asked mildly.

“Oh, no. He's been divorced forever. He was married when he was just out of law school in California. His mother died around that time. He keeps her picture on his desk. I thought his father was dead too, but then he showed up here last week, and Mr. Stafford got real angry and upset . . .” Glynn's voice trailed off.

Don't let
anyone
come in, Reba prayed. Don't let her stop.

“Maybe his father had neglected his mother, and he won't forgive him,” Reba suggested, hoping to keep the conversation going. She could see that Pat Glynn was beginning to look uncomfortable, perhaps sensing that she had said too much.

It was the same expression that Reba had seen on the face of Bernice Joyce.

But Pat overcame whatever misgivings she had and picked up the bait. “No, it was between them. Mr. Stafford practically threw his father out of the office. In the two years I've been here, I've never
once
heard him raise his voice, but he shouted at his father—he told him to get in his car and drive back to Princeton and stay there. He said, ‘You didn't believe me, you disowned me, your only son, you could have paid to have me defended.' The father was crying when he came out, and you can tell he's very sick, but I didn't feel sorry for him. He obviously had been just terrible to Mr. Stafford when he was a kid.”

Pat Glynn paused for breath, then looked at Reba. “You're just too nice and too easy to talk to. I shouldn't be telling you all this. It's just between us, all right?”

Reba stood up. “Absolutely,” she replied firmly. “I don't think I can wait any longer to see him, though. I'll phone for an appointment. Nice to meet you, Pat.” She pushed open the door, exited, and began to walk rapidly down the street. The last thing she wanted was to confront Will Stafford now. If he saw her and realized who she was, he would undoubtedly
get his gossipy secretary to admit how much she'd had to say.

Tomorrow's paper would headline Bernice Joyce's eyewitness story.

The next day, Saturday, her story would concentrate on Natalie Frieze, a battered wife, taking comfort in the arms of Will Stafford, one of the other potential suspects in the murders of Martha Lawrence and Carla Harper.

Sunday, if
The National Daily
research team could dig up the dirt fast enough, her angle would be on why Will Stafford, Spring Lake's popular and handsome real estate lawyer, had been disowned by his wealthy father, who wouldn't pay to defend him in court.

Reba, of course, was only guessing. She didn't know yet whether the father was wealthy, but he was from Princeton, which was upscale; besides, it would look good in print.

A
FTER THEY LEFT
E
MILY
, Tommy Duggan and Pete Walsh went directly to the home of Dr. Clayton Wilcox. Their interview with him had been frustrating and unsatisfactory.

Wilcox had stuck to his story about laying the scarf under his wife's pocketbook. When asked about
Dr. Lillian Madden, he
did
recall that some years ago he was experiencing mild depression and might have consulted her. “Or someone with a similiar name.”

“How long ago was that, Dr. Wilcox?” Tommy Duggan had asked.

“It's quite a while ago. I'm really not sure.”

“Five years? Three years?”

“I just can't pin it down.”

“Give it a shot, Doctor,” Pete Walsh suggested.

The only satisfacion the policemen had been able to extract from the meeting was the fact that Wilcox was visibly coming apart at the seams. His eyes were sunken. When he'd talked, he kept folding and unfolding his hands. Beads of perspiration kept forming on his forehead, even though the temperature in his study was cool to the point of discomfort.

“If nothing else, he's getting rattled,” Tommy told Pete.

Then, at four o'clock that afternoon, two things happened almost simultaneously. The technician phoned from Dr. Madden's office and gave them the dates Dr. Clayton Wilcox had consulted the psychologist.

“He saw her four weeks running after Martha Lawrence vanished, and three weeks running after Carla Harper vanished,” Tommy Duggan repeated, his tone both incredulous and exhilarated. “And he claims he didn't remember! The guy's a world-class liar.”

“He told us he saw her for a mild case of depression.
If he
did
strangle those girls, it's no wonder he was depressed,” Pete Walsh said sarcastically.

“The secretary, Joan Hodges, tells me they still haven't found the private file with the doctor's notes on Wilcox, but even if they can put it together, we'll need a court order to see it.” Tommy Duggan's mouth became a thin, angry line. “But no matter what, we're going to get that file.”

The second serving of manna from heaven came in the form of a phone call from the investigator in Ohio.

“I have a connection at the brokerage firm where Wilcox has his portfolio. It would cost the guy his job if it were known, but he looked up the Wilcox file. Twelve years ago when Wilcox retired, he took a one-hundred-thousand-dollar loan against his stocks. He took it in the form of a cashier's check made out to himself. However, the check was deposited in a bank in Ann Arbor, Michigan, in a new account opened by one Gina Fielding. On the bottom left of the face of the check someone wrote, ‘Antique desk and bureau.'”

“Is Gina Fielding a bona fide antiques dealer?” Tommy asked.

From the smile on Duggan's face as he listened, Pete Walsh knew good things were happening.

“You're gonna love this, Duggan. Gina Fielding was a junior at Enoch College and dropped out of school abruptly, just before Wilcox resigned.”

“Where is she now?”

“We're tracing her. She moved to Chicago, got married, then divorced. We'll locate her in the next day or two.”

When Tommy Duggan hung up the phone, he looked at Pete Walsh with grim satisfaction. “We may have our smoking gun,” he said. “Tomorrow morning we pay another visit to the eminent former president of Enoch College. I wouldn't be surprised if before we're finished they'll be taking his name off that building they dedicated to him out there.”

I
T HAS BEEN
a most distressing morning. Just as my final plan was unfolding so beautifully, I had to make a radical and potentially fatal decision.

I have been purchasing
The National Daily
every morning. That insidious columnist, Reba Ashby, has been staying at The Breakers all week and is omnipresent in the community, gathering gossip.

This morning I realized that her conversations with Bernice Joyce would prove to be either my downfall or my salvation.

Mrs. Joyce confided to Ashby that she was virtually certain she knew who had removed the scarf from under the pocketbook that evening.

If she had told that to the police, they would have successfully urged her to reveal my name. At that point, they would have started to investigate every detail of my life. They would no longer accept my unsubstantiated explanation of where I was and what I was doing when Martha disappeared.

They would have arrived at the truth, and this life as I choose to live it would be over.

I had to take the risk. I sat on a boardwalk bench near The Breakers, ostensibly deep in the newspaper, trying desperately to decide how it would be possible to go into the hotel and find Mrs. Joyce's room without being noticed and recognized. Under my hood I wore a wig so that if described it would be as having graying hair falling on my forehead. I also wore dark sunglasses.

I knew it was a pitifully poor attempt at a disguise, but I also knew that if the police had the opportunity to question Mrs. Joyce, she would surely reveal my name.

And then my opportunity came.

It is a beautiful day, sunny, and truly mild.

At 7:30 Mrs. Joyce came out of The Breakers for an early morning stroll. She was alone, and I followed her at a distance, my mind seeking how I could separate her from the other early morning strollers and joggers. Fortunately, the very early ones were already gone, and it was still too early for the people who walk after breakfast.

After several blocks, Mrs. Joyce sat on a bench on one of the boardwalk extensions that are for those who wish to sit and enjoy the ocean without the distraction of people constantly passing in front of them.

A perfect spot for my purpose!

I was about to go to her when Dr. Dermot O'Herlihy, a retired physician who never misses a daily walk, spotted Mrs. Joyce and paused to chat with her. Fortunately, he stayed only a few minutes, then continued on his way. I know he did not give me any heed as he passed the bench where I was seated.

There were people coming from both directions,
but none of them was less than a full block away. With the knotted cord in my hand, I sat down quietly beside Mrs. Joyce, whose eyes were closed as she enjoyed the morning sun.

She opened them when she felt the tug on her neck, turned her head, startled and frightened, as I tightened the cord and she understood what was happening.

She recognized me. Her eyes widened.

Her last words before she died were, “I was wrong. I didn't think it was you.”

“Y
OU DIDN'T EXACTLY
sleep like a baby last night,” Janey Browski told Marty, as she placed a steaming bowl of oatmeal in front of him.

“And I don't
feel
as if I slept like a baby,” Browski responded. “I kept dreaming. You know the kind of dreams that make you feel rotten, but then you can't remember them when you wake up? The dreams are gone. The rotten feeling remains.”

“Your subconscious is trying to tell you something. If you could remember even a little bit of your dream, I could help you to analyze it.”

Janey Browski poured coffee into their cups, sat down at the table, and began to spread strawberry jam on a piece of toast.

“Are you learning how to analyze dreams in your psych course?” Marty asked with a hint of a smile.

“We talk about how they can be made to work for you.”

“Well, if I dream tonight, I'll wake you up, tell you about it, and you can start analyzing.”

“Keep a pad on your night table and jot down all the details. But don't turn on the light when you do it.” Janey's tone became serious. “What's wrong, Marty? Something specific or just the overall worry about the stalker?”

“You were baby-sitting last night, and I went to bed early, so I didn't get a chance to tell you. I saw Eric Bailey yesterday.” Marty described the meeting and his sudden suspicion that Bailey might be the stalker.

“Frankly, I think you're reaching,” Janey said, “but on the other hand, is there some way you can check him out ?”

“Janey, common sense says that he wasn't in St. Catherine's Church at the memorial service last Saturday morning, seated not far from the pew where Emily was sitting. It would have been all over if she'd spotted him. As you know, it's a lot harder for a man to disguise himself than it is for a woman.”

He looked at the clock and hastily finished breakfast. “I'm out of here. Don't learn too much. I'd hate to be your intellectual inferior.” He paused. “And don't dare tell me I already am,” he cautioned as he kissed the top of her head.

Harder for a man to disguise himself than it is for a woman.
Like the unsettling dreams that he couldn't
remember, the phrase lingered somewhere in Marty's subconscious all day.