Susan studied his face as he knelt above her, a distant look in his eyes. He’s definitely mad, she thought. He’s mad, and he’s going to kill me. Just the way he killed all the others!
105
By eight o’clock that night, Doug Layton was at a blackjack table in one of Atlantic City’s slightly less fashionable casinos. Through some rapid manipulation of funds, he had been able to come up with the money he needed to cover the debts he had racked up during his last visit, but still his favorite casino had turned him away. To many of the people who knew him in Atlantic City, Layton was getting the reputation of a deadbeat.
The guys he paid back, however, celebrated by taking him out to lunch. In a way, Doug had felt a little relieved with how things were working out. Sooner or later the auditors would have caught up with him for stealing from the Clausen Family Trust, and there was still a good chance that Jane Clausen would get to Hubert March again; she might even convince him to call the police. Forewarned, he planned now to get out with the half-million-dollar stake he had gotten hold of today, before it was too late. He already had made a reservation for a flight to St. Thomas. From there he would manage to get to one of the islands where there was no extradition policy with the U.S. It was what his father had done—and he never had been caught.
Half a million would buy a good start on a new life. Layton knew that, and was determined to leave the country with that amount.
“You can’t leave this place without trying your luck at least one more time,” one of his new friends told him.
Doug Layton considered the challenge; he acknowledged that he felt lucky. “Well, maybe a hand of blackjack,” he said in agreement.
It was only nine o’clock when he left the casino. Barely aware of his surroundings, he walked onto the beach. There was no way to get the money he needed now, the money he owed to the guys who had staked him again today, when his luck turned sour for the last time. It was all over for him. He knew what would follow: conviction for embezzlement. Prison. Or worse.
He took off his suit jacket and laid his watch and his wallet on it. It was something he’d read about, and it seemed to make sense.
He could hear the surf pounding. A stiff, cold wind blew off the ocean, and the surf was high. He shivered in his shirtsleeves. He wondered how long it would take to drown—and decided it was better not to know, that it was just one of those things that you wouldn’t know about until you did it, like so much else in his life. He stepped into the water gingerly, then took another, bigger step.
It’s all Susan Chandler’s fault, he thought, as the icy water lapped at his ankles. If only she had stayed out of it, no one would have known, and I’d have had years more at the trust . . .
He held his breath against the cold and plunged on until his feet were no longer touching bottom. A big wave caught him, then another, then he was choking, lost in a world of cold and darkness, pummeled by the waves. He tried not to struggle.
Silently he cursed Susan Chandler. I hope she dies. It was Douglas Layton’s last conscious thought.
106
Don Richards caught the plane to La Guardia with only minutes to spare. It was not a direct flight. He cursed the layover in Atlanta, but it couldn’t be helped. As soon as they had cleared the airport and he was able to use the telephone, he called Susan Chandler’s office.
“I’m sorry, Dr. Richards, but she’s with a patient and can’t be interrupted,” her secretary informed him. “I’d be happy to take a message and leave it for her. I do know, though, that she has another patient right after this one, so she may not—”
“How long will Dr. Chandler be there?” Don asked impatiently.
“Sir, she has patients until seven o’clock; she mentioned earlier that after that she’s planning to do some paperwork.”
“Then please take down this message, exactly as I give it: ‘Don Richards needs to see you about Owen. His plane gets in about eight o’clock. He’ll pick you up at your office. Wait for him.”’
“I’ll leave it right on my desk where she’ll see it, sir,” the secretary said, her tone a little icy.
And so Susan would have, if it weren’t hidden under the telephone.
The flight attendant was offering a drink and snacks. “Just coffee, please,” Don Richards said. He knew he needed a clear head. Later, Susan and I will have a drink and dinner, Don thought. I’ll tell her what I think she’s already guessed—that the person poor Carolyn is trying to talk about is named Owen, not Win. Ever since he had seen the name Owen circled on both passenger lists on the desk in Susan’s apartment, he had been turning this over in his mind, and he thought that was the most likely explanation.
He would also tell Susan—and that was the reason he was desperate to get back to New York—that whoever “Owen” really was, he was very likely the killer. And if Don was right, Susan was in grave jeopardy.
I was on Susan’s program both when Carolyn and Tiffany phoned in, Don thought, as he stared into the darkening sky. Carolyn was almost killed by that van. Tiffany was stabbed to death. The killer won’t stop there to protect his secret, whatever it is.
I told Susan, when I was on her program, that my goal was to help women help themselves, to be aware of and sensitive to danger signs. I’ve spent four years angry with myself, thinking I could have saved Kathy. Now I realize I was wrong. Hindsight is a wonderful thing, but if we were to relive those same last few minutes together, I still wouldn’t tell her to stay home.
The clouds were drifting past the plane like waves lapping at the side of a ship. Don thought of the two cruises he’d tried to take in the past two years—brief ones to the Caribbean. In both cases, he got off at the first port. He kept seeing Kathy’s face in the water. He knew it wouldn’t happen anymore.
Anxiety was gnawing at him. Susan can’t go this route alone any longer, Don vowed to himself. It was too dangerous. Much more dangerous than she knew.
The plane landed at quarter of eight. “Bear with us, and relax,” the captain announced. “They’re having a busy evening, and all the gates are presently occupied.”
It was eight-ten before Don got off the plane. He rushed to a phone and called Susan’s office. There was no answer, and he hung up without leaving a message.
Maybe she finished early and went home, he thought. But he got no response at her apartment either, just the answering machine.
Maybe I should try again at the office, he thought. She may have just stepped out. But again he got no answer; this time, however, he decided to leave her a message. “Susan,” he said. “I’m going to stop by your office. I hope you got the message I left earlier with your secretary, and you’re still around. With luck I’ll be there in half an hour.”
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 i
n 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 time,” 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 flashed 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.
I 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.
I don’t want to die. And I 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.”