Death Wears a Beauty Mask and Other Stories (35 page)

Jenny. Eighteen, never going to see nineteen.

Jenny. Eighteen, going on eternity.

Jenny. Eighteen and accepted at Georgetown, the college she and Lisa had planned to attend together and take by storm.

I didn't think I could ever get up in the morning again after she died, Helen thought, her mind still awash in the remembered pain Fred's phone call had triggered. But then, Fred's terrible inability to accept or cope had forced her to be strong for his sake. Until she could no longer put up with his . . . say it, she thought . . . his
dishonesty
.

Unconsciously, she walked more quickly as though hoping to outpace her thoughts. Resolutely she made herself think of her life as it was now, Atlanta, the new friends, the pediatrics intensive care unit where she was part of the team that helped keep the flicker of life alive in a dying child. And in the last year, after all this time, Gene, sixty-three years old, a widower, the director of Orthopedic Surgery. They were seeing each other regularly.

Raleigh. Renwood. Raines. What was that psychiatrist's name?
Something was shouting at her to get in touch with him. She knew what she'd do. There had to be a list of psychiatrists who practiced in or around St. Augustine. She'd ask Gene to see if any of the doctors in the psychiatric section could check for her. Then if they could identify the right one, she could phone and explain that she was Fred Rand's ex-wife and worried that he might be on the verge of some sort of breakdown.

If she would talk to Fred's doctor, maybe he could call Fred on his cell phone. At least it was worth a try.

Or maybe she should just stay out of it. Fred always calmed down eventually, and she didn't even know where he was staying. He probably wouldn't answer his cell phone anyway. He almost never did.

•  •  •

Early the next morning Stuart Kling did an extra half hour at the gym. He showered and changed into sweats. From there he planned to go straight to headquarters. Feeling particularly pleased with himself that he'd finally shed the five pounds he'd been trying to lose since Christmas, his step was light as he walked out the side entrance of the gym to the parking lot.

He heard rather than saw the window being lowered on the van that was parked next to his car. An instinct of nearby danger made him whirl around, his car key in hand. Stuart Kling had a nearly infallible memory for faces, and in the final moment before he died, he identified his murderer. His finger plunged involuntarily on the remote control in his hand and the trunk of the car sprang open as he crumpled to the ground. A sheet of paper fluttered from the van and was anchored by the blood that poured from the wound in his chest.

“TRAFFIC TICKET TO HELL” was what the stunned employee of the gym who ran out at the sound of the gunshot and reached Kling first was able to read before the printed letters on the
paper became too stained to distinguish. Frantically the employee rushed to get the number on the license plate of the van as it roared out of the parking lot, but the plate was missing.

•  •  •

Three days after his meeting with Detective Joe O'Connor, Mark Baxter found a torn edge of a checking account deposit slip with a license plate number jotted on it in the large handbag his mother had regularly carried unless she was dressing up for a particular event.

It was in the zippered section where she always kept her checkbook and wallet, and somewhat crumpled. In the past few days, as well as phoning O'Connor about his mother's ambiguous reference to “something funny happening lately,” Mark had called him about a new handyman a neighbor had told him his mother has been using, a new deliveryman from the dry cleaner and several emails he found on her computer from a distant cousin who asked about getting together when he was in town.

He was beginning to feel somewhat foolish because O'Connor had checked out all the leads and they had led exactly nowhere. It's probably been buried there for months, he thought, vaguely remembering that a neighborhood kid had slightly dented his mother's car when he parked too close to her in the church parking lot. But she'd decided to let it go because she was trading the car in anyway and didn't want the kid to get in trouble with his parents.

He crumpled the deposit slip, tossed it in the wastebasket and went home. The house where he had been raised, the house that had always been warm and welcoming, was now the scene of his mother's murder, and the less time he spent in it, the better. On the way to his law office he listened to the radio and heard the news that Nassau County police lieutenant Stuart Kling had been murdered as he was leaving the gym where he regularly worked out.

Kling, Mark thought. Poor guy. Why does that name sound familiar? The newscaster was saying that the prime suspect was a man Kling had arrested six years earlier who had just been released from a psychiatric hospital. I never used to think it was a lousy world, Mark thought, but I'm beginning to wonder.

His first appointment was at eleven o'clock. Because of his rearranged schedule since his mother's death, he had a busy day, but underlying all the meetings two things kept throbbing from below the level of conscious thinking. He should at least pass the license number he'd found in his mother's pocketbook over to Joe O'Connor, and why did Stuart Kling's name feel as though it should have great importance to him?

•  •  •

Tomorrow would finish it. Lisa Monroe Scanlon. After tomorrow she wouldn't be alive to go into that handsome house in Locust Valley, that symbol of the early success of two talented young people. Tim Scanlon was a stockbroker, and at thirty-eight a vice president of a prestigious financial giant. Fred had looked in the window of Lisa's interior decorating studio. Couches draped with a variety of expensive upholstery samples, chairs and antique tables. A mantel with candlesticks, a delicate painted clock. Floral prints on the walls.

She did all right for herself, Fred thought. A husband, a family, a business. And her parents reveling in their adorable grandchildren, while my grandchildren were never called into existence.

That day Jenny had gone to pick up Lisa. They had planned to go shopping together, but then Lisa changed her mind.

If she had gone with Jenny, if there had been two of them in the car when the tire went flat, Jenny would be alive today.

That night as Fred listened to the news reports of the shooting
death of Lieutenant Stuart Kling, he cleaned and loaded the gun he would use to complete his task. He knew exactly when he would go into the house. Tomorrow morning. Tim Scanlon left at quarter past seven. The twins got on the school bus at 8:05. The bus was at the corner of their street, just a few houses down. The three mornings he'd watched, Lisa had walked with them to the corner and then scurried back home. She always left the door slightly ajar.

If she did that tomorrow, he'd slip inside and be waiting for her. If she didn't, he'd ring the bell and tell her he'd stopped with a gift for her. She'd let him in. After all, he was Mr. Rand, Jenny's father.

Then when the babysitter arrived at nine o'clock, she would find Lisa's body.

And I will go home, Fred thought. And visit Dr. Rawlston, my psychiatrist, and tell him that I do feel I am making progress in my struggle to accept my daughter's death. I will tell him that seeing my daughter's grave made a profound sense of peace come over me and I am sure it will stay with me. I will tell him that I no longer hate the people who caused Jenny's death.

I gave him their names, he thought. That wasn't wise. For some reason he was suddenly uneasy. The euphoria that began the moment he squeezed the trigger and watched Stuart Kling crumple on the ground was evaporating. He had a feeling of people waiting in the shadows, approaching him.

His cell phone rang. He did not answer it. He guessed it might be Helen. He knew she suspected that something different was going on inside him. He knew he had talked too much to her about the people who had caused Jenny's death.

She had urged him to call his psychiatrist. Would she have called Dr. Rawlston? Between them would they decide to call the police and suggest that Fred Rand was a deeply troubled man and perhaps certain people should be warned if he tried to contact them? And
then they would learn that three of those certain people were already dead.

Abruptly Fred finished loading the gun, put it in his briefcase, stood up and began to pack. It was time to get out of here. He'd drive to Locust Valley now. The house next to Lisa's was obviously used only as a summer home. He could park in the back and never be noticed.

Even if it meant that he would be caught, he had to complete the job.

At eight-thirty, Fred Rand checked out of the motel in Garden City, got in his car and drove forty minutes to Locust Valley. Just after he turned off the highway, he stopped at a small restaurant and had dinner, remembering to slip a few rolls in his pocket in case he felt like nibbling during the night. At ten o'clock he was parked deep in the shadows of the house next to the Scanlon home. Tonight the sleep that had been denied him in the quite comfortable bed in the motel came easily when he leaned his head back and tilted the seat to a reclining position.

He awoke at dawn and waited.

•  •  •

Mark Baxter slept restlessly. Kling. Stuart Kling. Why should he know that name? He woke up, puzzled over it and went back to sleep. This time he dreamed that his mother was in the bank and making a deposit. But instead of the amount on the check she was depositing, she had written a license number and was trying to make the clerk accept it.

At seven o'clock when Mark grabbed a cup of coffee and kissed his wife and daughter good-bye, he did not drive to his office. Instead he turned the car in the direction of his late mother's home. He knew that he had to fish the license number out of the wastebasket,
give it to Detective Joe O'Connor and tell O'Connor that for some reason he should be remembering a connection with the murdered Nassau County police lieutenant.

•  •  •

Helen Rand had a sleepless night. She spent it berating herself that she had not attempted to reach Fred's psychiatrist. At dinner she had talked about her concern to Gene and he had told her Bruce Stevens, a psychiatrist friend of his, could undoubtedly track down a psychiatrist with a name like Rawlings or Raines or Renwood in the St. Augustine area.

When Gene dropped her off, Helen had actually tried through the telephone information operator to obtain the psychiatrist's number, but without the exact name, she got exactly nowhere.

At seven-fifteen she called Gene at the hospital. “Please call Dr. Stevens, Gene. I don't know why, but I'm suddenly terribly worried.”

At eight o'clock she was speaking to Dr. Richard Rawlston who practiced in Ponte Vedre, some fifteen miles from St. Augustine.

Quickly she explained her concerns to him, then waited, hoping against hope that he would, if not dismiss them, at least tell her that in his opinion there was no serious threat that Fred would do something rash.

“You say Fred is in Long Island now and you don't believe he is taking his medication, Mrs. Rand?”

“That's right.”

There was a long pause, then the psychiatrist said, “I had been quite concerned about Fred, but then he told me that he was going on a cruise with friends and feeling much better. If that was a lie and he is in Long Island, I think there are three people who might need protection. I have their names. They are all people whom he blames for not preventing your daughter's death. A security guard, an elderly woman, and a police officer.”

“Yes, those are the people he blamed.”

“Do you know where Fred is staying, Mrs. Rand?”

“No, I don't.”

“Then I think I have no recourse but to call the Nassau County police and notify them of our concern. I would like to give them your number in case they want to talk with you.”

“Of course. I'm off duty today. I'll be here.”

Helen hung up the phone. And waited.

•  •  •

Mark was in Joe O'Connor's office when the call from Dr. Rawlston came in. They had just traced the license number that Genevieve Baxter had jotted down on the deposit slip. It belonged to a Volvo that had been rented by Fred Rand of St. Augustine, Florida.

“He took my mother's life because . . .” Mark broke into sobs. “He blamed her! He blamed her!”

“And Stuart Kling and Vinnie D'Angelo, whose body washed in yesterday afternoon. They suspected foul play in D'Angelo's case,” Joe said grimly.

“If only Mother had told me that night,” Mark said.

“You don't know how many ‘if only's' we hear in this business.” O'Connor picked up the phone. “Put out an all-points bulletin . . . armed and dangerous . . .”

•  •  •

At seven-fifteen Fred watched as Tim Scanlon left his home. Hidden in the heavy foundation shrubbery outside the kitchen window, he saw Tim drop quick kisses on his family, could even hear him calling from the vestibule, “Remember, I'll be a little late tonight, honey.”

No you won't, Fred thought. You'll be back here in a couple of hours. After you get the call about Lisa.

In her bathrobe, her hair twisted up on the back of her head, Lisa
looked very young, he thought, almost as young as she'd been in the days when she and Jenny were always together.

You'll be together soon, Fred thought.

•  •  •

The news that Fred had killed the three people in Long Island left Helen in absolute shock. For an hour she sat motionless, unable to grasp the awfulness of his crime. But then she realized that through the horror she was also feeling a terrible sense of being warned. Jenny's voice was shouting to her.

At ten of eight, she called Dr. Rawlston back. Her voice frantic with fear she asked, “Doctor, did Fred ever say anything about blaming Jenny's friend Lisa for her death?”