You belong to me (36 page)

107

"Susan, surely you can understand why I'm so angry. Gerie saw my having to run the family trust as a form of poetic justice. Every day I had to sign checks giving away money that belonged to me. Can you imagine? When the foundation was established sixteen years ago, it was worth one hundred million dollars. Now it's worth a billion, and I can take the credit for most of its growth. But no matter how much money there is in the coffers, I still get only my paltry salary."

I've got to keep him talking, Susan told herself. What time do the people in the cleaning staff come in? she wondered, then remembered with a sinking feeling that they had been emptying wastebaskets when Mrs. Ketler arrived at six. That meant they were long gone.

His fingers were caressing her throat now. "I really think I could have been happy with you, Susan," he went on. "If I had married you, I might have tried to put the past behind me. But, of course, that wouldn't have worked, would it? The other night you sent Dee to take your place next to me at the table. You did it because you didn't want to be with me, didn't you? You know that, don't you? That was the reason."

I know I wasn't comfortable Saturday night, Susan thought. But was that the reason? I thought it was because of what Nat Small told me earlier in the day about Abdul Parki's death.

Nat Small. He was a witness. Would Alex get to him too?

"Alex," she said, her voice coaxing. "It's not going to do any good to kill me. There are hundreds more pictures being delivered to my office tomorrow. You're not going to be able to destroy them. The police will study them one by one. They'll study the people in the background."

"Feathers in the wind," Alex murmured, his tone dismissive.

I may be getting to him, Susan thought. "Someone will recognize you, Alex. You don't go to big parties, yet that first night, when I agreed to have dinner with you, you said you met Regina at a Futures Industry dinner. That's a big one, Alex. Something started troubling me about you that night."

"Feathers in the wind," he said again. "But, Susan, you're the one who scattered mine. I know I can't go on much longer, but I will finish my mission before I'm stopped. Remember the song? 'See the jungle when it's wet with rain.' You know who was in the jungle today? Dee. She was on a tour in the rain forest in Costa Rica. That's close enough. Tomorrow people will be grieving for you when your body is discovered. But that won't happen until nine o'clock or so. By then, Dee and I will be having breakfast in Panama. Her ship docks at eight, and I will surprise her by joining her there. I have a turquoise ring for her. She'll read a great deal into it." He paused. "Actually, Susan, now that I think about it, you've been a great help to me. You've provided me with my last lonely lady. Dee will be perfect."

Slowly, very slowly, he was closing the bag. It was covering her chin. "Alex, you need help, a lot of help," Susan pleaded, trying to keep the desperation from showing in her voice. "Your luck is running out. You can save yourself if you stop now."

"But I don't want to stop, Susan," he said matter-of-factly. The ringing of the telephone made him jump to his feet. They both listened intently as Don Richards left a message, saying he was on his way to her office.

Please God, let him get here soon, Susan thought.

"It's tune," Alex Wright said calmly. And with a sudden movement of his hand, he pulled the bag the rest of the way over her head and quickly sealed it. Then he pushed her under the desk.

He stood up and looked down at his handiwork. "You'll die long before Richards gets here," he said with the casual assurance of someone who had done this before. "It will take about ten minutes." He paused to let his words sink in. "That's how long Regina lasted."

108

"Look, mister, I didn't invent traffic jams," the cabby told Don Richards. "The Midtown Tunnel is tied up. What else is new?"

"You've been on the phone with the dispatcher. Shouldn't he be able to warn you about tie-ups? Couldn't you have avoided this?"

"Mister, some guy has a fender-bender. Thirty seconds later you got a tie-up and a traffic jam."

Arguing with him is not doing any good, Don cautioned himself, nor will it get me there any faster. But it is so frustrating being stuck like this with horns blaring all around me.

Susan, he thought, your secretary must have left that message for you. When you heard that I was calling about Owen, you would have waited for me. So why aren't you answering? "Please, Susan," he half-whispered. "Be there, and be safe."

109

The little air that had been trapped in the bag was almost gone. Susan felt herself getting lightheaded. Take short, shallow breaths, she told herself. Don't use up the oxygen.

Air. Air; her lungs screamed.

The memory suddenly dashed through her head of one of the first cases she worked on as an assistant district attorney. It had involved a woman found with a plastic bag over her head. I was the one who said her death couldn't be suicide, and I was right. The woman had loved her children too much to leave them willingly.

/ can't breathe. I can't breathe. The pain was starting to gather in her chest.

Don't pass out, she warned herself fiercely.

The murdered woman with the plastic bag over her head had been rosy faced when she was found. Carbon monoxide does that when it kills you, the medical examiner had explained.

I can't breathe. I want to go to sleep. She could feel her mind relaxing, as though ready to give up the fight.

Dee. Alex was going to meet her tomorrow. She was going to be his final victim.

I'm going to sleep, Susan thought. I can't stop myself from going to sleep.

/ don't want to die. And 1 don't want Dee to die. Her mind struggled to continue, struggled to survive with no air.

She was wedged under the desk. With a sudden thrust, she kicked her feet against the front panel and managed to push her body out a few inches. She felt the wastebasket against her right side.

The wastebasket! The glass from the broken vase was in it!

Gasping now, Susan heaved her body to the side, felt the basket topple over, heard the broken glass scatter on the floor. As she twisted her head toward the sound, she felt the basket move away, felt blackness overwhelming her.

With one last effort, she moved her head from side to side. A sudden, terrible pain hit her as the jagged glass, caught between the floor and her body, cut through the heavy plastic under her. Blood soaked her shoulder, but she could feel the plastic start to separate. She continued to gasp as she moved her body back and forth, back and forth, feeling the blood gush from her wounds, but feeling also the first faint hint of air.

It was there, on the floor of her office, that Don Richards found her half an hour later. She was barely conscious; her temple was bruised, her hair matted with blood; her back was bleeding profusely; her arms and legs were bruised and swollen from her struggles with the cord that bound her. Jagged glass lay all around her.

But she was alive! Alive!

110

Alex Wright was waiting at the dock when the Valerie sailed into San Blas on Tuesday morning. It was eight o'clock. He had left New York last night, going directly to the airport from Susan Chandler's office. He wondered if Don Richards, who had phoned her, asking that she wait for him, had finally given up. Alex had turned off all the lights when he left, so Richards must have assumed she simply hadn't waited for him. In all likelihood, her secretary would find her body in another hour or so.

A good number of the passengers on the Valerie were standing on the deck. There was something magical about being aboard a ship as it steamed into harbor, he thought. Although perhaps it was symbolic, because each new harbor signified an end of the journey for someone.

This would be Dee's final journey. She was his last lonely lady. And then he'd be on his way to Russia. That's where he'd be when he was notified of the tragic death of the two sisters who had been his guests on Saturday evening. Susan had said that he might be spotted in some of the pictures from Regina's cruise. Maybe, he thought. But he had looked very different on that cruise. Could anyone positively identify him? I don't think so, he decided confidently.

He spotted Dee standing on deck. She was smiling and waving at him. Or was she pointing to him?

He was suddenly aware that men had moved up to stand on either side of him. Then he heard a low, deep voice say, "You're under arrest, Mr. Wright. Please come with us quietly."

Alex Wright stifled his surprise and shrugged. Then he turned to go. He realized, with a touch of bitter irony that this was the end of the journey for him.

Don Richards waited in the hospital lobby while Susan visited Jane Clausen. This morning she was lying in bed, a single pillow beneath her head. Her hands were folded on the coverlet. The shades were drawn.

Despite the room's darkness, she was quick to notice the bruise on Susan's temple. "What happened, Susan?" she asked.

"Oh, nothing. A bad bump, that's all." Susan felt tears come to her eyes as she bent to kiss Jane Clausen's cheek

"How very dear you've become to me," Jane Clausen said. "Susan, I don't think I'll be here tomorrow, but at least yesterday I managed to take care of the trust. Some good, reliable people will watch over it for me. You've heard about Douglas?"

"Yes. I didn't know if you knew."

"I'm so sorry for him. He could have amounted to so much. And I worry for his mother; he's an only son."

"Mrs. Clausen, there's no easy way to tell you this, but I think it's something you will want to know. The man who killed Regina, and at least five other people, has been arrested. There's overwhelming proof of his guilt. And your coming forward to talk to me when you did played a vital role in solving the crimes."

She saw the long shudder that went through the dying woman's body. "I'm glad. Did he talk about Regina? I mean, I wonder if she was very frightened."

Regina must have been terrified, Susan thought. I know I was. "I hope not," she said.

Jane Clausen looked up at her. "Susan, all that matters now is that I'll be with her soon. Good-bye, my dear, and thank you for all your kindness."

As Susan rode down in the elevator, she thought back on the events of the preceding week. Could it really have been so short a time? she wondered. Was it really only nine days ago that I first met Jane Clausen? Yes, the mystery of Regina Clausen's disappearance had been solved, but in the process three other people had died, and a fourth was seriously injured.

She thought of Carolyn Wells and her husband Justin. She had talked to him this morning-Carolyn was out of her coma, and the doctors now were predicting a full, though protracted, recovery. Susan had started to apologize to him; after all, had it not been for her raising the whole subject of Regina Clausen's disappearance, none of these terrible things would have happened to either Carolyn or himself. Justin had insisted, however, that despite the agony of the past week, all things had happened for a reason. He was planning to go back in therapy with Dr. Richards, and hopeful that once his extreme jealousy was in check, the kind of fear that had driven Carolyn to be so secretive would no longer be a part of their lives. "Besides," Justin had said with a chuckle, "I wouldn't have missed the great pleasure of watching Captain Shea stumble through an embarrassed apology. He really thought I was a killer."

At least he and Carolyn will be okay, Susan thought. But not poor Tiffany Smith, nor the other two people whose deaths are tied to the case-Hilda Johnson and Abdul Parki. She made a mental note to visit Nat Small's shop on MacDougal Street later in the week to let him know that his friend's killer had been caught.

It had all started so innocently. Susan had intended only to raise the issue of how lonely, unsuspecting women, despite their intelligence and apparent sophistication, can be lured into dubious and sometimes fatal relationships by men who prey on them. It was a great topic and had produced a few lively shows. And three murders, she thought. Then she asked herself: Will I be afraid to do that kind of investigative show in the future? I hope not, she decided. After all, a serial killer has been apprehended; who knows who else he might have killed-besides me and Dee-had he not been caught?

And a couple of good things had come out of it. She had gotten to know Jane Clausen and been of some comfort to her. And she had met Don Richards. He was a strange bird, she thought-a psychiatrist who denied himself the kind of help he offered on a daily basis, yet who finally summoned the strength to face his own demons.

I might have bled to death if I'd been lying there all night, she thought, wincing from the pain of the stitches in her shoulders and back. When Don got to her office and found it locked, some instinct had made him demand the security guard open the door and check the office with him. I was never so glad to see anyone in my life, she thought. As he ripped the bag open and lifted her up, there was tenderness and relief on his face.

As Susan emerged from the elevator, Don Richards stood up and crossed to meet her. They looked at each other for a moment, then Susan smiled at him, and he put his arm around her. It seemed to both of them that it was the natural thing for him to do.

The End