All Around the Town

by Mary Higgins Clark

  “Have you ever watched them on television, Laurie?”

  She shook her head. “I don’t like that kind of program.”

  Justin waited. On his desk he had the report from the art therapist. Little by little a pattern was forming in Laurie’s sketches. The last half dozen had been collages, and in each she had included two specific scenes: one showed a rocking chair with a thick, deep cushion, and next to it a stick figure of a woman, the other, a thick-trunked tree with wide, heavy branches in front of a windowless house.

  Justin pointed to those illustrations on each of the papers. “Remember doing these?”

  Laurie looked at them indifferently. “Sure. I’m not much of an artist, am I?”

  “You’ll do. Laurie, look at that rocking chair. Can you describe it?”

  He saw her start to slip away. Her eyes widened. Her body became tense. But he did not want one of the alter personalities to block him. “Laurie, try.”

  “I have a headache,” she whispered.

  “Laurie, you trust me. You’ve just remembered something, haven’t you? Don’t be afraid. For Sarah’s sake, tell me about it, let it out.”

  She pointed to the rocking chair, then clamped her lips together and squeezed her arms against her sides.

  “Laurie, show me. If you can’t talk about it, show me what happened.”

  “I will.” The lisping, childlike voice.

  “Good girl, Debbie.” Justin waited.

  She hooked her feet under his desk and tilted back the chair. Her arms crushed against her sides as though held in place by an outside force. She brought down the chair onto the floor with a thud and tilted it back again. Her face was contorted in fear. “ ‘Amazing grace, how sweet the sound,’ ” she sang in a frail, little-girl voice.

  The chair thudded and tilted in perfect imitation of a rocker. With her body arched and arms immobile, she was miming a young child being held on a lap. Justin glanced down at the top drawing. That was it. The cushion looked like a lap. A small child held by someone and singing as she was being rocked. Back and forth. Back and forth.

  “ ‘. . . And grace will lead me home.’ ” The chair stopped. Her eyes closed again. Her breathing became quick, painful gasps. She stood and went up on her toes as though she was being lifted. “Time to go upstairs,” she said in a deep voice.

  74

  “HERE THEY COME again,” Sophie observed tartly as the familiar dark blue Cadillac pulled up into the driveway.

  Sarah and Brendon Moody were in the kitchen waiting for the coffee to perk. “Oh God,” Sarah said, her tone irritated. “It’s my fault for letting it happen,” she said to Brendon. “Tell you what. Sophie, bring the coffee into the library when it’s ready and tell them I’m in a meeting. I’m just not in the mood to be prayed over.”

  Brendon scurried behind her and closed the library door as the chimes sounded through the house. “I’m glad you didn’t give them a key,” he said.

  Sarah smiled. “I’m not that crazy. The thing is that there are so many things in this house that I can’t use, and they’re willing and anxious to buy them. I’ve been having appraisals. They’re bringing in experts to have their own appraisals, and it’s beginning to feel as though I have star boarders.”

  “Why not get it over with at once?” Brendon asked.

  “Mostly my fault. I tell them what I’m willing to sell, then I take a look at all the stuff in this house and realize no way am I going to fit it into a condo, and so I tell them all this other stuff is available too. Or they come to me and ask about that painting or that table or that lamp. And so it goes.” Sarah pushed back her hair. The day was warm and humid, and her hair had frizzed into a cloud resembling dark autumn leaves around her face.

  “That’s something else,” she added as she sat down at the desk. “Dad never went for air-conditioning, and they intend to put in a new system. They’d like to be able to move on it as soon as we close, and that means engineers and whatever now.”

  Keep your mouth shut, Brendon told himself as he settled in the leather chair opposite the desk. He knew that the Hawkinses had paid top dollar for the house, and if they were buying the furniture Sarah could not use, it meant she didn’t have to try to find buyers or store it. Laurie’s hospitalization was costing a fortune, and the student insurance policy she carried was covering only a small portion of it. To say nothing of the costs of preparing a defense, and Sarah not working, he thought.

  “You’ve had a chance to go over your insurance policies?” he asked.

  “Yes. Brendon, I don’t get it. There is no outstanding or questionable claim. My father kept his records straight. His insurance went to Mother, and then, in the event of her predeceasing him, to us. Since he outlived her by a few minutes, it came directly to us. Unfortunately everything except the house is tied up in trusts, which would have made a lot of sense if all this hadn’t happened. We get payouts of fifty thousand dollars each for five years for a total of a quarter of a million each, and there’s no way we can invade the principal of those trusts.”

  “What about the bus company?” Brendon asked. “Have you filed suit against them?”

  “Of course,” Sarah said. “But why would they have us checked? We weren’t involved in the accident.”

  “Oh, hell,” Brendon said, “I was hoping to get somewhere with this angle. I’ll get the investigator drunk and pump him, but that’s probably what it’s about. Just the bus company. How’s Laurie?”

  Sarah considered. “She’s better in a lot of ways. I think she’s coming to terms with losing Dad and Mom. Dr. Donnelly is wonderful.”

  “Any memory of Allan Grant’s death?”

  “Nothing. However, she is starting to let things out about what happened to her those years she was away. Just bits and pieces. Justin, I mean Dr. Donnelly, is sure that she was molested in that time. But even showing her the videotapes of her therapy sessions when her alter personalities come out isn’t helping her to have a real breakthrough.” Sarah’s voice lost its calm tone and became desperate. “Brendon, it’s May. In three months I have found nothing to use as a defense for her. She seems to have three alter personalities. Kate, who is kind of a protector, almost like a cross nanny. Calls Laurie a wimp and gets angry at her, but then tries to shield her. She keeps blocking memory. Leona is a sexpot. That personality did have a fatal attraction for Allan Grant. Just last week she told Dr. Donnelly that she’s so sorry she brought the knife with her that night.”

  “Sweet Jesus,” Brendon muttered.

  “The last personality is Debbie, a four-year-old kid. She cries all the time.” Sarah raised her hands, then let them fall. “Brendon, that’s it.”

  “Will she ever remember what happened?”

  “Possibly, but no one can predict how long it will take. She does trust Justin. She understands that she can end up in prison. But she can’t seem to make the breakthrough.” Sarah looked at him. “Brendon, don’t suggest I plea bargain.”

  “I have no intention of suggesting that,” Brendon growled. “At least not yet.”

  Sophie entered the library, carrying a tray of coffee. “I left them alone upstairs,” she said. “That’s all right, isn’t it?”

  “Of course,” Sarah said. “After all, Sophie, he’s a preacher. Surely he’s not stuffing trinkets in his pockets.”

  “Today they’re having a big debate about combining your bathroom and Laurie’s and putting in a Jacuzzi. I thought clergymen lived simply.” She banged the tray on the desk.

  “Not necessarily,” Brendon commented. He dropped three lumps of sugar in the coffee and stirred it vigorously. “Sarah, Gregg Bennett honestly doesn’t know what triggered Laurie’s reaction to him last year. I think he’s still pretty crazy about her. The evening before Grant died, some of the students were discussing Laurie’s crush on the professor and Gregg overheard them. Stormed out of the student center.”

  “Jealous?” Sarah asked quickly.

  Brendon shrugged. “If he
was, it doesn’t seem to have any bearing on Allan Grant’s death unless . . .”

  “Unless Laurie gets her memory back.”

  There was a tap on the door. Sarah raised her eyes. “Prepare yourself to be blessed,” she murmured, then called, “come in.”

  Bic and Opal, their faces set in solicitous smiles, stood in the doorway. They were dressed casually. Bic had taken off his jacket, and his shortsleeved T-shirt revealed muscular arms covered with soft graying hair. Opal wore slacks and a cotton blouse. “Not to disturb, just to see how it’s going,” she said.

  Sarah introduced Brendon Moody to them. He grunted a greeting.

  “And how is that little girl?” Bic asked. “You don’t know how many people we have praying on her.”

  75

  JUSTIN DONNELLY did not want to admit to Sarah that he now believed Laurie would not recover significant memory in time for the trial. With two members of his staff, Pat and Kathie, the art and journal therapists, he reviewed the tapes of his therapy sessions with Laurie. “Notice how the alter personalities trust me now and are willing to talk, but they all stonewall me when I try to go back to the night of January twenty-eighth or the years of Laurie’s abduction. Let’s discuss the three alter personalities again.

  “Kate is thirty-three, which makes her fairly close to Sarah’s age. I think she was created by Laurie to be a protector, which is how Laurie sees Sarah. Totally unlike Sarah, Kate is usually annoyed at Laurie, calls her a wimp, gets disgusted with her for getting in trouble. I think that shows Laurie’s feeling that she deserves to have Sarah angry at her.

  “Debbie, the four-year-old child, wants to talk but is too frightened or maybe just doesn’t understand what happened. I suspect she is pretty much as Laurie was at that age. Sometimes she shows flashes of humor. Sarah Kenyon said that Laurie was a precociously funny child before she was kidnapped.

  “Leona is a pretty sexy lady. There’s no question she was crazy about Allan Grant and jealous of his wife. There’s no question that she was so angry about what she perceived as his betrayal of her that she might have been capable of killing him, but now she talks about him with a kind of affection, the way you might talk about an old lover. The fight’s over. The anger’s faded and you remember the good parts.”

  They were in the staff room adjacent to Justin’s office. The late spring sun was streaming in the windows. From where he sat, Justin could look over at the solarium. Several of the patients were there, enjoying the sunshine. As he watched, Laurie walked into the solarium, arm in arm with Sarah.

  Pat, the art therapist, was holding several new drawings. “Have you got the snapshot that Laurie tore up at home?” she asked.

  “Right here.” Justin riffled through the file.

  The therapist studied the photograph, compared it with some of Laurie’s sketches, then laid them side by side. “Okay, see this.” She pointed to a stick figure. “And this. And this. What do you make of it?”

  “She’s starting to put a playsuit or a bathing suit on the stick figure,” Justin commented.

  “Right. Now notice how in these three, the figure has long hair. In these two, look at the difference. Very short hair. She’s drawn a face of sorts that gives me the impression of a boy’s face. The arms are folded the way they are in the picture that’s glued together. I think there’s a possibility that she’s recreating that image of herself but changing it to a boy. I wish to God the print wasn’t so mutilated. She sure did a terrific job of shredding it.”

  Kathie, the journal therapist, was holding Laurie’s latest composition. “This is the handwriting of her alternate Kate. But notice how different it is from the way it was in February. It’s more and more like Laurie’s penmanship. And listen to what it says. “I’m getting so tired. Laurie will be strong enough to accept what has to be. She’d like to walk in Central Park. She’d like to take the golf clubs, drive to the club and tee off. It would have been fun for her to be on the golf circuit. Was it less than a year ago they called her the best young woman golfer in New Jersey? Maybe prison isn’t much different than here. Maybe it’s secure like this place. Maybe the knife dream will stay far away in prison. Nobody can sneak into prison with guards around. They can’t come with knives in the night. They check all the incoming mail in prison. That means that pictures can’t walk into books by themselves.’ ” The journal therapist handed the composition to Justin. “Doctor, this may be a sign that Kate is accepting guilt and punishment for Laurie.”

  Justin stared out the window. Sarah and Laurie were sitting side by side. Whatever Sarah was saying, Laurie was laughing. They could have been two very attractive young women on their terrace at home or at a country club.

  The art therapist had followed his gaze. “I was talking to Sarah yesterday. I think she’s going on sheer nerve now. The day the prison door closes behind Laurie, you may have a new patient, Dr. Donnelly.”

  Justin stood up. “They’re due in my office in ten minutes. Pat, I think you’re right. She’s drawing different versions of the torn snapshot. Do you know anyone who might be able to take it apart, clean off all that glue, reassemble it and blow it up so we can get a better look?”

  She nodded. “I can try.”

  He turned to Kathie. “Do you think that if Laurie or Kate realizes the effect her imprisonment will have on Sarah that she’ll be less resigned to an automatic conviction?”

  “Possibly.”

  “Okay. And there’s something else I’m going to do. I’m going to talk to Gregg Bennett, Laurie’s ex-boyfriend, and try to find out all the circumstances of the day she became so frightened of him.”

  76

  AS BRENDON MOODY slid onto a bar stool at Solari’s next to Danny the Spouse Hunter, he noted that Danny’s cherubic face was beginning to sag at the jawline. Broken capillaries on his nose and cheeks were tributes to his appreciation of dry Manhattans.

  Dan greeted Moody with his usual exuberance. “Ah, there you are, Brendon. A sight for sore eyes.”

  Brendon grunted a greeting, resisting the urge to tell Dan what he could do with his acquired brogue. Then, reminding himself of the reason he was here and of Danny’s fondness for dry Manhattans and the Mets, he ordered a round and asked Danny how he figured the team would do this season.

  “Brilliant. A pennant,” Danny crowed happily. “The lads have it together, by jingo.”

  I knew you when you could speak English, Brendon thought, but said, “Grand. Grand.”

  An hour later as Brendon nursed his first drink, Danny finished his third. It was time. Brendon directed the conversation to Laurie Kenyon. “I’ve been on the case,” he said in a confidential whisper.

  Danny’s eyes narrowed. “So I’ve heard. Poor girl went bonkers, did she not?”

  “Looks it,” Brendon acknowledged. “Guess she went nuts after the parents were killed. Too bad she didn’t get regular professional counseling then.”

  Danny glanced around. “Ah, but she did,” he whispered. “And forget where you heard it. I hate to think they’d keep you in the dark.”

  Brendon looked shocked. “You mean she was seeing some shrink?”

  “Right over in Ridgewood.”

  “How do you know, Danny?”

  “Between the two of us?”

  “Of course.”

  “Right after the parents died my services were engaged just to do a background check on the sisters and their activities.”

  “No kidding. Insurance company, I suppose. Something about a claim against the bus company?”

  “Now, Brendon Moody, you know the client-investigator relationship is strictly confidential.”

  “Of course it is. But that bus was going too fast; the brakes were bad. The Kenyons never had a chance. Naturally an insurance company would be pretty nervous and want to get a line on the potential plaintiffs. Who else would be checking on them?”

  Danny remained stubbornly silent. Brendon signaled the bartender, who shook his head. “I’ll drive my good fr
iend home,” Brendon promised. He knew it was time to change the subject. An hour later, after he hoisted Danny into the passenger seat of his car, he started talking about the Kenyons again. As he pulled up in the driveway of Danny’s modest split level he hit pay dirt.

  “Brendon, me lad, you’re a good friend,” Danny said, his voice thick and slow. “Don’t think I don’t know but that you’ve been pumping me. Between you and me and the lamppost, I don’t know who hired me. All very mysterious. A woman it was. Called herself Jane Graves. Never did meet her. Called every week to get a progress report. Had it sent to a private mail drop in New York City. You know who I think it might be? The widow of the late professor. Wasn’t the poor dingbat Kenyon girl writing mash notes to him? And didn’t the demand for my services end the day after the murder?”

  Danny pushed open the car door and staggered out. “A grand good night to ye, and next time ask me straight. It won’t cost you so many drinks.”

  77

  THE “ARCHITECT” Bic had brought to the Kenyon home on one of his early visits was an ex-convict from Kentucky. It was he who wired the library and telephone with sophisticated, voice-activated equipment, and concealed a recorder in the guest bedroom above the study.

  As Bic and Opal roamed upstairs with measuring tapes, fabrics and paint samples, it was an easy matter for them to change the cassettes. The minute they were in the car, Bic began playing the tapes and he continued to listen to them over and over in their Wyndham Hotel suite.

  Sarah had begun to have regular evening telephone conversations with Justin Donnelly, and these were gold mines of information. At first Opal had to make a concerted effort to conceal her sullen annoyance at Bic’s absolute passion for any news of Lee. But as the weeks went by she was torn between fear of discovery and fascination at the talk about Laurie’s flashes of recall. Sarah’s discussion with the doctor about the rocking chair memory especially gratified Bic.