One False Move: A Myron Bolitar Novel

by Harlan Coben

  He found none.

  The ring of the phone and the muffled voices invaded his sleep, becoming part of his dream. When Myron opened his eyes, he remembered little. He’d been younger in the dream, and he felt a deep sadness as he’d floated up toward consciousness. He closed his eyes again, trying to claw back into that warm, nocturnal realm. The second ring blew away the fading images like so much cloud dust.

  He reached for his cell phone. As it had for the past three years, the bedside clock blinked 12:00 A.M. Myron checked his watch. Almost seven in the morning.

  “Hello?”

  “Where are you?”

  It took Myron a moment to place the voice. Officer Francine Neagly, his old high school buddy.

  “Home,” he croaked.

  “Remember the Halloween scare?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Meet me there in a half hour,” she said.

  “Did you get the file?”

  Click.

  Myron hung up the phone. He took a few deep breaths. Great. Now what?

  Through the vents he heard the muffled voices again. They were coming from the kitchen. Years down here had given him the ability to tell by the echo in what room of the house a certain sound originated—not unlike the Indian brave in an old western who puts his ear to the ground to calculate the distance of incoming hoofbeats.

  Myron swung his legs out of the bed. He massaged his face with his palms. He threw on a velour bathrobe circa 1978, gave the teeth a quick brush, the hair a quick pat, and headed to the kitchen.

  Brenda and Mom sipped coffee at the kitchen table. Instant coffee, Myron knew. Muy watery. Mom wasn’t big on better coffees. The wondrous smell of fresh bagels, however, jump-started his stomach. A bowlful of them along with an assortment of spreads and several newspapers adorned the tabletop. A typical Sunday morning at the Bolitar homestead.

  “Good morning,” Mom said.

  “Morning.”

  “Want a cup of coffee?”

  “No, thanks.” New Starbucks in Livingston. He’d check it out on the way to Francine.

  Myron looked at Brenda. She looked back steadily. No embarrassment. He was glad.

  “Good morning,” he said to her. Sparkling morning-after repartee was Myron’s forte.

  She nodded a good morning back.

  “There are bagels,” Mom said, in case both his eyes and olfactory nerves had shorted out. “Your father picked them up this morning. From Livingston Bagels, Myron. Remember? The one on Northfield Avenue? Near Two Gondoliers Pizzeria?”

  Myron nodded. His dad had bought bagels from the same store for thirty years, yet his mother still felt a constant need to entice him with this tidbit. He joined them at the table.

  Mom folded her hands in front of her. “Brenda was filling me in on her situation,” she said. Her voice was different now, more lawyerly, less maternal. She pushed a newspaper in front of Myron. The murder of Horace Slaughter had made page one, left-hand column, the spot usually reserved for whatever teen had thrown her newborn out with the morning trash.

  “I’d represent her myself,” Mom continued, “but with your involvement, it might look like a conflict of interest. I was thinking of Aunt Clara.”

  Clara was not really his aunt, just an old friend of the family and, like Mom, an awesome attorney.

  “Good idea,” Myron said.

  He picked up the paper and scanned the article. Nothing surprising. The article mentioned the fact that Brenda had recently gotten a restraining order against her father, that she had accused him of assaulting her, and that she was wanted for further questioning but could not be reached. Detective Maureen McLaughlin gave the standard spiel about its being “too early to rule anybody in or out.” Right. The police were controlling the story, leaking just enough to incriminate and put pressure on one person: Brenda Slaughter.

  There was a photograph of Horace and Brenda. She was wearing her college basketball uniform, and he had his arm around her. Both were smiling, but the smiles looked more of the “say cheese” variety than anything approaching genuine joy. The caption read something about the father and daughter during “a happier time.” Media melodrama.

  Myron turned to page A-9. There was a smaller photograph of Brenda and then, more interestingly, a photograph of Horace Slaughter’s nephew, Terence Edwards, candidate for state senate. According to the caption, the photograph had been taken at “a recent campaign stop.” Hmm. Terence Edwards looked pretty much as he had in the photographs at his mother’s house. With one important difference: In this picture Terence was standing next to Arthur Bradford.

  Hello.

  Myron showed Brenda the photograph. She looked at it a moment. “Arthur Bradford seems to pop up frequently,” she said.

  “Yes.”

  “But how does Terence fit into this? He was a kid when my mother ran off.”

  Myron shrugged. He checked the kitchen clock. Time to meet Francine. “I have to run a quick errand,” he said vaguely. “I shouldn’t be long.”

  “An errand?” Mom frowned. “What kind of errand?”

  “I’ll be back soon.”

  Mom magnified the frown, getting her eyebrows into the act. “But you don’t even live here anymore, Myron,” she went on. “And it’s only seven in the morning.” In the morning. In case he mistook it for being seven at night. “Nothing’s even open at seven in the morning.”

  Mother Bolitar, Mossad Interrogation.

  Myron stood through the grilling. Brenda and Mom weighed him with their eyes. He shrugged and said, “I’ll tell you about it when I come back.” He hurried off, showered, dressed in record time, and jumped into his car.

  Francine Neagly had mentioned the Halloween scare. He surmised that this was a kind of code. When they were in high school, about a hundred of their classmates had gone to see the movie Halloween. It was a new movie then, just out, and it scared the piss out of everyone. The next day Myron and his friend Eric had dressed up like the murderous Michael Myers—i.e., in black and wearing a goalie mask—and hidden in the woods during the girls’ gym class. They never approached, just popping into sight every once in a while. A few of the kids freaked out and started screaming.

  Hey, it was high school. Cut him some slack, okay?

  Myron parked the Taurus near the Livingston football field. AstroTurf had replaced grass almost a decade earlier. AstroTurf at a high school. Was that necessary? He climbed through the woods. Sticky dew. His sneakers got wet. He quickly found the old path. Not far from this very spot Myron had made out—necked, to use his parents’ terminology—with Nancy Pettino. Sophomore year. Neither one of them liked the other very much, but all their friends had paired up, and they’d both been bored and figured what the hell.

  Ah, young love.

  Francine sat in full uniform on the same big rock the two fake Michael Myers had stood upon nearly two decades ago. Her back was to him. She did not bother to turn around when he approached. He stopped a few feet from her.

  “Francine?”

  She let out a deep breath and said, “What the hell is going on, Myron?”

  In their high school days Francine had been something of a tomboy, the kind of fierce, spunky competitor you could not help envying. She tackled everything with energy and relish, her voice daunting and confident. Right now she was balled up on the rock, hugging her knees to her chest and rocking back and forth.

  “Why don’t you tell me?” Myron said.

  “Don’t play games with me.”

  “I’m not playing games.”

  “Why did you want to see that file?”

  “I told you. I’m not sure it was an accident.”

  “What makes you unsure?”

  “Nothing concrete. Why? What happened?”

  Francine shook her head. “I want to know what’s going on,” she said. “The whole story.”

  “Nothing to tell.”

  “Right. Yesterday you woke up and you said to yourself, ‘Hey, that accidental death
that occurred twenty years ago, I bet it wasn’t an accident at all. So I’ll go ask my old buddy Francine to get the police file for me.’ That what happened, Myron?”

  “No.”

  “So start talking.”

  Myron hesitated a moment. “Let’s say that I’m right, that Elizabeth Bradford’s death was not an accident. And let’s say there is something in those files that proves it. That would mean the police covered it up, right?”

  She shrugged, still not looking at him. “Maybe.”

  “And maybe they would want it to stay buried.”

  “Maybe.”

  “So maybe they would want to know what I know. Maybe they would even send an old friend to make me talk.”

  Francine’s head snapped around as if someone had pulled a string. “You accusing me of something, Myron?”

  “No,” he said. “But if there’s a cover-up going on, how do I know I can trust you?”

  She rehugged her knees. “Because there is no cover-up,” she said. “I saw the file. A little thin, but nothing unusual. Elizabeth Bradford fell. There were no signs of a struggle.”

  “They did an autopsy?”

  “Yep. She landed on her head. The impact crushed her skull.”

  “Tox screen?”

  “They didn’t run one.”

  “Why not?”

  “She died from a fall, not an overdose.”

  “But a tox screen would have shown if she’d been drugged,” Myron said.

  “So?”

  “There were no signs of a struggle, okay, but what would have prevented someone from drugging her and then dumping her over the side?”

  Francine made a face. “And maybe little green men pushed her.”

  “Hey, if this was a poor couple and the wife had accidentally fallen off her fire escape—”

  “But this wasn’t a poor couple, Myron. It was the Bradfords. Did they get preferential treatment? Probably. But even if Elizabeth Bradford had been drugged, it still doesn’t add up to murder. Quite the opposite, in fact.”

  Now it was Myron’s turn to look confused. “How do you figure?”

  “The fall was only three stories,” Francine said. “A short three stories.”

  “So?”

  “So a murderer who pushed her off that terrace could not have counted on that low a fall killing her. More likely she would have just broken a leg or something.”

  Myron stopped. He had not thought of that. But it made sense. Pushing someone off a third-floor balcony with the hopes that she would land on her head and die was risky at best. Arthur Bradford did not hit Myron as a man who took risks.

  So what did that mean?

  “Maybe she was hit over the head beforehand,” Myron tried.

  Francine shook her head. “The autopsy didn’t show any signs of an earlier blow. And they also checked the rest of the house. There was no blood anywhere. They might have cleaned it up, of course, but I doubt we’ll ever know.”

  “So there’s absolutely nothing suspicious in the report?”

  “Nothing,” she said.

  Myron raised his hands. “So why are we out here? Trying to recapture our lost youth?”

  Francine looked at him. “Somebody broke into my house.”

  “What?”

  “After I read the file. It was supposed to look like a burglary, but it was a search. A thorough one. The place is trashed. Then right after that Roy Pomeranz calls me. Remember him?”

  “No.”

  “He was Wickner’s old partner.”

  “Oh, right,” Myron said, “an early musclehead?”

  “That’s him. He’s chief of detectives now. So yesterday he calls me into his office, something he’s never done before. He wants to know why I was looking at the old Bradford file.”

  “What did you tell him?”

  “I made up some bullshit story about studying old police techniques.”

  Myron made a face. “And Pomeranz bought that?”

  “No, he didn’t buy it,” Francine snapped. “He wanted to slam me against a wall and shake the truth out of me. But he was afraid. He was pretending like his questions were just routine, no big deal, but you should have seen his face. He looked maybe half an egg sandwich away from a coronary. He claimed that he was worried about the implications of what I was doing because it was an election year. I nodded a lot and apologized and bought his story about as much as he bought mine. When I drove home, I spotted a tail. I shook it this morning, and here we are.”

  “And they trashed your place?”

  “Yup. The work of professionals.” Francine stood now and moved closer to him. “So now that I’ve stepped into a pail of snakes for you, you want to tell me why I’m taking all these bites?”

  Myron considered his options, but there weren’t any. He had indeed gotten her into this mess. She had a right to know.

  “You read this morning’s paper?” he asked.

  “Yes.”

  “You see the story on the murder of Horace Slaughter?”

  “Yes.” Then she held a hand out as though to silence him. “There was a Slaughter in the file. But it was a woman. A maid or something. She found the body.”

  “Anita Slaughter. The victim’s wife.”

  Her face lost a little color. “Oh, Christ, I don’t like the sound of this. Go on.”

  So he did. He told her the whole story. When he finished, Francine looked down below them at the patch of grass where she had captained the field hockey team. She chewed on her lower lip.

  “One thing,” she said. “I don’t know if it’s important or not. But Anita Slaughter had been assaulted before Elizabeth Bradford’s death.”

  Myron took a step back. “What do you mean, assaulted?”

  “In the report. Wickner wrote that the witness, Anita Slaughter, still displayed abrasions from the earlier assault.”

  “What assault? When?”

  “I don’t know. That’s all it said.”

  “So how do we find out?”

  “There might be a police report on it in the basement,” she said. “But—”

  “Right, you can’t risk it.”

  Francine checked her watch. She moved toward him. “I got some errands to run before I start my shift.”

  “Be careful,” he said. “Assume your phone is tapped and your house bugged. Assume at all times you’re being followed. If you spot a tail, call me on the cell phone.”

  Francine Neagly nodded. Then she looked down at the field again. “High school,” she said softly. “Ever miss it?”

  Myron looked at her.

  She smiled. “Yeah, me neither.”

  On the ride back to his house the cell phone rang. Myron picked it up.

  “I got the information on Slaughter’s credit card.” Win. Another one who loved to exchange pleasantries. It was still before eight in the morning.

  Myron said, “You’re awake?”

  “My God, man.” Win waited a beat. “What gave it away?”

  “No, I mean, you usually sleep late.”

  “I haven’t gone to bed yet.”

  “Oh.” Myron almost asked what he’d been doing, but he knew better. When it came to Win and the night, ignorance was quite often bliss.

  “Only one charge in the past two weeks,” Win said. “A week ago Thursday Horace used his Discover card at the Holiday Inn in Livingston.”

  Myron shook his head. Livingston. Again. The day before Horace vanished. “How much?”

  “Twenty-six dollars even.”

  Curious amount. “Thanks.”

  Click.

  Livingston. Horace Slaughter had been in Livingston. Myron replayed the theory that had been rumbling in his head since last night. It was looking better and better.

  By the time he got back to his house, Brenda was showered and dressed. The cornrows in her hair cascaded down her shoulders in a wondrous dark wave. The café con leche skin was luminous. She gave him a smile that corkscrewed right through his heart.

/>   He wanted very much to hold her.

  “I called Aunt Mabel,” Brenda said. “People are gathering at her house.”

  “I’ll drop you off.”

  They said good-bye to Mom. Mom warned them sternly not to talk to the police without an attorney present. And to wear seat belts.

  When they got in the car, Brenda said, “Your parents are great.”

  “Yeah, I guess they are.”

  “You’re lucky.”

  He nodded.

  Silence. Then Brenda said, “I keep waiting for one of us to say, ‘About last night.’”

  Myron smiled. “Me too.”

  “I don’t want to forget it.”

  Myron swallowed. “Neither do I.”

  “So what do we do?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Decisiveness,” she said. “I love that in a man.”

  He smiled again and turned right on Hobart Gap Road.

  Brenda said, “I thought West Orange was the other way.”

  “I want to make a quick stop, if you don’t mind.”

  “Where?”

  “The Holiday Inn. According to your father’s charge cards, he was there a week ago Thursday. It was the last time he used any of his cards. I think he met someone for a meal or drinks.”

  “How do you know he didn’t stay overnight?”

  “The charge was for twenty-six dollars even. That’s too low for a room yet too high for a meal for one. It’s also a straight twenty-six dollars. No cents. When people tip, they often round off. Best guess is that he met someone there for lunch.”

  “So what are you going to do?”

  Myron gave a half shrug. “I have the photograph of Horace from the paper. I’m going to show it around and see what happens.”

  On Route 10 he made a left and pulled into the Holiday Inn lot. They were less than two miles from Myron’s house. The Holiday Inn was a typical two-level highway motel. Myron had last been here four years ago. An old high school buddy’s bachelor party. Someone had hired a black hooker aptly named Danger. Danger put on a supposed “sex show” far closer to freaky than erotic. She also handed out business cards. They read: “FOR A GOOD TIME, CALL DANGER.” Original. And now that Myron thought about it, he bet that Danger was not even her real name.