All Around the Town

  Allan showed her the “Leona” letters as soon as they began to arrive. “I’m not going to let Karen see these,” he said. “They’d only upset her.”

  “Surely she wouldn’t put any stock in them.”

  “No, but underneath that sophisticated veneer, Karen is pretty insecure, and she does depend on me more than she realizes.” A few weeks later he told her that Karen had found the letters. “Just what I expected. She’s upset and worried.”

  At the time, Vera had thought that Karen sent some pretty mixed signals. Worried about her husband but away so much. Foolish lady.

  At first, Allan seemed to deliberately avoid any kind of personal discussion. Then gradually he began to talk about growing up. “My dad split when I was eight months old. My mother and grandmother . . . what a pair. They did anything to make a dollar.” He’d laughed. “I mean just about anything. My grandmother had a big old house in Ithaca. She rented rooms to old people. I always said I was raised in a nursing home. Four or five of them were retired teachers, so I had a lot of help with my homework. My mother worked in the local department store. They saved every penny they could for my education and invested it wisely. I swear they were disappointed when I won a full scholarship to Yale. They were both good cooks. I can still remember how great it was to get home on a cold afternoon after I finished my paper route, open the door, feel that blast of warmth and breathe in all the good smells from the kitchen.”

  Allan had told her all that a week before he died. Then he’d said, “Vera, that’s the way I feel when I come here. Warmth and a sense of coming home to someone I want to be with and who I hope wants me.” He’d put his arm around her. “Can you be patient with me? I’ve got to work something out.”

  The night he died, Allan had been with her for the last time. He’d been depressed and upset. “I should have spoken to Laurie and her sister first. I jumped the gun by going to the dean. Now the dean has as much as said that my manner with these kids is too friendly. He flat out asked me if Karen and I were having problems, if there was any reason she was away so much.” At the door that night, he’d kissed her slowly and said, “It’s going to change. I love and need you very much.”

  Some instinct had warned her to tell him to stay with her. If only she’d listened to it and to hell with the gossips. But she let him go. A little after ten-thirty she’d phoned him. He sounded remarkably cheerful. He’d spoken to Karen and it was all out on the table. He had taken a sleeping pill. Again he had said, “I love you,” the last words she would ever hear from him.

  Too restless to go to bed herself, Vera had watched the eleven o’clock news and started tidying up the living room, fluffing pillows, straightening magazines. In the wing chair she’d noticed something gleaming. The ignition key to Allan’s car. It must have slipped out of his pocket.

  She was filled with unreasoning worry about him. The key was an excuse to call again. She dialed his number, letting the phone ring and ring. There was no answer. The sleeping pill must really have taken effect, she’d reassured herself.

  Today, suddenly reminded again of her loneliness, Vera hurried, head down, along her cobblestone walk, Allan’s face filling her mind. Her arms ached for him. She reached the steps. “Allan. Allan. Allan.”

  Vera didn’t realize she’d spoken his name aloud until she looked up into the keen eyes of Brendon Moody, who was waiting for her on the porch.

  81

  SEATED AT a corner table in Villa Cesare in Hillsdale, a few miles from Ridgewood, Sarah wondered why in heaven’s name she had let herself get talked into having dinner with the Reverend Bobby and Carla Hawkins.

  The couple had shown up at her door five minutes after she returned from New York. They’d been just driving around, they explained, getting to know their new neighborhood, and she’d passed them on Lincoln Avenue.

  “You looked as though you needed a little help,” the Reverend Bobby said. “I just felt the Lord telling me to turn around, drop by and say hello.”

  When she’d reached home at seven o’clock after leaving the clinic and saying goodbye to Gregg Bennett, Sarah had realized she was tired and hungry. Sophie was out, and the minute Sarah opened the door of the empty house she knew she didn’t want to stay there.

  Villa Cesare was a longtime favorite restaurant, a great place to eat. Clams casino, shrimp scampi, a glass of white wine, cappuccino; that alwaysfriendly, welcoming atmosphere, she thought. She was walking out the door when the Hawkinses arrived; somehow they ended up joining her.

  As she nodded to familiar faces at other tables, Sarah told herself, these are caring people and I’ll accept any prayers I can get. Lost in her thoughts, she suddenly realized that Reverend Hawkins was asking about Laurie.

  “It’s all a matter of time,” she explained. “Justin—I mean Dr. Donnelly—doesn’t have any doubt that eventually Laurie will let down her defenses and talk about the night Professor Grant died, but it seems as though that memory is entwined with her fear of whatever happened to her in the past. The doctor feels that at some point she’ll achieve a spontaneous breakthrough. Pray God she does.”

  “Amen,” Bobby and Carla said in unison.

  Sarah realized her guard was down. She was talking about Laurie too much. These people were, after all, strangers whose only connection to her was that they had bought the house.

  The house. Safe ground. “Mother planned the landscaping so we’d always have color,” she said as she selected a crusty roll. “The tulips were marvelous. You saw them. The azaleas will be out in a week or so. They’re my favorites. Ours are great, but the D’Andreas’ are spectacular. They’re in the corner house.”

  Opal smiled brightly. “Which house is that? The one with green shutters or the white one that used to be pink?”

  “The one that used to be pink. God, my father hated it when the old owners painted it that color. I remember he said he was going to go to the town hall and petition to have his taxes lowered.”

  Opal felt Bic’s eyes glaring at her. The enormity of her mistake almost made her gasp. Why had the pink corner house popped into her mind now? How many years since it had been painted?

  But fortunately Sarah Kenyon did not seem to notice the slip. She began talking about the condominium and how well it was coming along. “It will be ready by August first,” she said. “So we’ll be on target to vacate the house for you. You’ve been very kind to wait so long to occupy it.”

  “Is there any chance that Laurie may get home?” Bic asked casually as the waiter served him veal piccata.

  “Pray for that, Reverend Hawkins,” Sarah told him. “Dr. Donnelly has said she is absolutely no threat to anyone. He wants a psychiatrist appointed by the prosecutor’s office to examine her and agree that she should become an outpatient. He believes that in order to cooperate in her defense, Laurie must overcome the feeling that she needs to be behind locked doors in order to feel safe.”

  “There is nothing I want more than to see your little sister at home in Ridgewood,” Bic said as he patted Sarah’s hand.

  That night when Sarah settled in bed, she had the nagging feeling that something she should have noticed had escaped her attention.

  It must have been something Laurie said, she decided as she drifted off to sleep.

  82

  JUSTIN DONNELLY walked from the clinic to his Central Park South apartment, so engrossed in his own meditation today that for once he did not drink in the changing panorama of New York. At seven o’clock, the sun was still forty minutes from setting. The hazy warmth had brought out a steady stream of people, strolling along Fifth Avenue, browsing through the bookstands on the sidewalk flanking the park or appraising the amateurish art.

  The pungent smell of souvlaki that wafted to his nostrils as the weary vendors pushed their carts to overnight shelters, the sight of the patient horses as they stood fastened to festively decorated carriages at the corner of Fifth and Central Park South, the line of limousines in front of the Plaza Hotel—all
these things escaped him. Justin’s thoughts were totally on Laurie Kenyon.

  She was by far the most interesting patient he’d ever encountered. It was common for women who had been molested as small children to feel that they had somehow invited or caused the abuse. Most of them at some point came to understand they had been powerless to prevent what had happened to them. Laurie Kenyon was resisting that knowledge.

  But there was progress. He’d stopped in to see her before he left the clinic. Dinner was over, and she was sitting in the solarium. She’d been quiet and pensive. “Gregg was awfully nice to have come today,” she’d volunteered and then added, “I know he’d never hurt me.”

  Justin had taken a chance. “He did more than not hurt you, Laurie. He helped you to see that by jokingly picking you up, he triggered a memory that, if you let it out, will help you to get well. The rest is up to you.”

  She’d said, “I know it is. I’ll try. I promise. You know, Doctor, what I’d like to do more than anything in the world?” She hadn’t waited for an answer. “I’d like to fly to Scotland and play golf at St. Andrews. Does that seem crazy to you?”

  “It sounds terrific to me.”

  “But of course it will never happen.”

  “Not unless you help yourself.”

  As Justin turned in to his building, he wondered if he’d pushed her too far. He wondered if calling the psychiatrist appointed by the prosecutor’s office and asking him to reevaluate Laurie for the purpose of reinstating bail was a mistake.

  A few minutes later he was sitting on the terrace of his apartment, sipping his favorite Australian Chardonnay, when the phone rang. It was the clinic. The head nurse apologized for calling. “It’s Miss Kenyon. She says she must speak to you at once.”

  “Laurie!”

  “Not Laurie, Doctor. Her alter Kate. She wants to tell you something terribly important.”

  “Put her on!”

  The strident voice said, “Dr. Donnelly, listen, you ought to know. There’s a kid who wants to talk to you something fierce, but Laurie’s afraid to let him.”

  “Who is the kid, Kate?” Justin asked quickly. I’m right, he thought. Laurie does have another alter who hasn’t surfaced yet.

  “I don’t know his name. He won’t tell me what it is. But he’s nine or ten and smart and took a hell of a lot for Laurie. He’s tired of shutting his mouth. Keep working on her. You’re wearing her down. He came within inches of talking to you today.”

  The receiver clicked in Justin’s ear.

  83

  ON JUNE 15 the Reverend Bobby Hawkins received a phone call from Liz Pierce of People magazine requesting an interview. She’d been assigned to do a feature on him for a September issue, she said.

  Bic protested, then said that he was flattered and pleased. “It will be a joy to spread the word of my ministry,” he assured Pierce.

  But when he hung up the phone, the warmth disappeared from his voice. “Opal, if I refuse, that reporter might think I was hiding something. At least this way I can influence what she writes.”

  84

  BRENDON MOODY looked compassionately at Sarah. The mid-June day was sticky, but she still had not turned on the window air conditioner in the library. She was wearing a dark blue linen jacket with a white collar and a white skirt. It was only eight-thirty, but she was already dressed to go to New York. Four months of this, Brendon thought, eating, drinking, breathing a defense that’s going nowhere; spending the day in a psychiatric clinic and being grateful her sister is there instead of in the Hunterdon County jail. And he was about to shoot down her last hope for a viable defense.

  Sophie knocked and without waiting for a response opened the door and came in carrying a tray with cups of coffee, rolls and orange juice. “Mr. Moody,” she said, “I hope you can make Sarah swallow this roll. She’s at the point where she eats nothing and is becoming skin and bones.”

  “Oh, Sophie,” Sarah protested.

  “Don’t, ‘oh, Sophie,’ me—it’s the truth.” Sophie put the tray down on the desk, her face puckered with worry. “Is the miracle man going to show up today?” she asked. “I swear, Sarah, you should charge those people rent.”

  “They should charge me rent,” Sarah said. “They’ve owned this house since March.”

  “And the agreement was that you’d move out in August.”

  “They don’t bother me. In fact they’ve been very nice to me.”

  “Well, I’ve been watching them on TV every Sunday lately, and let me tell you, they are some pair. As far as I’m concerned that man is taking the name of the Lord in vain what with promising miracles in return for cash and talking as though God drops in to chat with him every day.”

  “Sophie,” Sarah protested.

  “All right, all right, you’re busy.” Shaking her head, Sophie marched from the library, her heavy footsteps signaling her disapproval.

  Sarah handed Brendon a coffee cup. “As we were saying, or did we get around to saying anything?”

  Brendon took the coffee, added three heaping teaspoons of sugar and stirred noisily. “I wish I had good news,” he said, “but I don’t. Our best hope was that Allan Grant was taking advantage of Laurie’s depression and grief and then drove her over the edge by giving her letters to the administration. Well, Sarah, if he was taking advantage of her, we’ll never be able to prove it. His marriage was rotten. I could sense that and I’ve followed up on the wife. She’s a piece of goods. According to the hotel staff, she’s had quite a variety of different male friends. For the past year or so, however, she’s stuck to the same one and seems pretty crazy about him. Name is Edwin Rand. He’s one of those polished, good-looking types who’s lived off women all his life. About forty or forty-five. A travel writer who doesn’t make enough money to live on but gets invited to resorts all over the world. He’s made an art of the freebie.”

  “Did Allan Grant know about him?” Sarah asked.

  “Can’t be sure. When Karen was at home they seemed okay together.”

  “But suppose he did know and was hurt and rejected and turned to Laurie, who was crazy about him?”

  Sarah seemed to come alive as she spoke. Poor kid, Brendon thought, grabbing at anything that would be the basis for a defense.

  “It doesn’t wash,” he said flatly. “Allan had been seeing a member of the faculty, Vera West. West broke down when she told me that the last time she spoke to him was at about ten-thirty the night he died. He was in good spirits and said that he was relieved because it was all out on the table.”

  “Meaning?”

  “She took it to mean that he’d told his wife he wanted a divorce.”

  Brendon looked away from the despair in Sarah’s eyes. “Actually, you could make a prima facie case against the wife,” he told her. “Allan Grant’s mother left him a trust fund. He got in the neighborhood of $100,000 a year income from it. Couldn’t touch the principal—and that’s close to a million and a half and still growing—until he was sixty. The mother obviously realized he had no money sense.

  “From what I hear, Karen Grant was treating that income as her personal allowance. In the event of a divorce, that trust was not community property. Whatever she makes at the travel agency wouldn’t support her pricey apartment and designer clothers. The writer boyfriend would have been history. With Allan’s death, however, she got it all.

  “The only problem,” Brendon concluded, “is that Karen Grant certainly didn’t borrow the knife, kill her husband and then return the knife to Laurie afterwards.”

  Sarah didn’t notice that her coffee was barely lukewarm. Sipping it helped to release the tightened muscles in her neck and throat.

  “I’ve heard from the Hunterdon County prosecutor’s office,” she told him. “The psychiatrist they sent to examine Laurie reviewed the tapes of her therapy sessions. They accept the possibility that she suffers from multiple personality disorder.”

  She ran her hand over her forehead as though trying to brush away a he
adache. “In return for Laurie’s pleading guilty to manslaughter, they won’t press for the maximum penalty. She’d probably be out in five years, maybe less. But if we go to court, the charge will be purposeful and knowing murder. There’s a good chance they could make it stick.”

  85

  “IT’S BEEN a month since Kate phoned to tell me that there’s another alter personality, a nine- or ten-year-old boy, who wants to talk to me,” Justin Donnelly told Sarah. “As you know, since then, Kate disclaims any knowledge of that personality.”

  Sarah nodded. “I know.” It was time to tell Justin Donnelly that she and Brendon Moody had agreed that it was in Laurie’s best interest that they accept the offer of a plea bargain. “I’ve reached a decision,” she began.

  Justin listened, his eyes never leaving Sarah’s face. If I were an artist, he thought, I would sketch that face and caption it “Grief.”

  “So you see,” Sarah concluded, “the psychiatrists for the state do believe that Laurie was abused as a child and there is substantial indication of multiple personality disorder. They know the jury is going to sympathize with her, and it’s unlikely she’d be convicted of murder. But the penalty for aggravated manslaughter is also a possible thirty years. On the other hand, if she pleads guilty to second-degree manslaughter, intentionally killing in the heat of passion with reasonable provocation, at worst she could be sentenced to a maximum of ten years. It would be up to the judge if she got a mandatory five years without parole. He could also give her as little as a five-year flat term with no parole ineligibility stipulation, and she could be out in a year or two. I don’t have the right to gamble with nearly thirty years of Laurie’s life.”

  “How can she plead guilty to a crime she doesn’t remember committing?” Justin asked.

  “It’s legal. Her statement will be something to the effect that while she has no memory of the crime, she and her lawyer, having reviewed the evidence, are satisfied that she committed it.”