“See you tomorrow!” Taylor said. Then she hurried back toward her apartment.
Anna started down the stairs. She thought about that uncomfortable hug. Maybe it was her own wariness at having Sally’s daughter do so much for her.
Anna felt sorry for her. But Taylor was going out of her way to help her.
So—who was the pitiful one here?
Stepping out of the building, Anna headed toward her car. As she walked in the warm afternoon sun, it occurred to her that, just minutes ago, she’d been so enthusiastic about her therapy session. She’d felt good getting things off her chest—and hopeful about remembering what she’d blacked out from the night Courtney had disappeared.
Yet, in a matter of minutes, she was feeling bad again. Or maybe she just didn’t want to get her hopes up because somewhere deep inside she knew this was all going to turn out horribly.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Tuesday, July 21—6:44 P.M.
“I’m still hoping against hope that my baby girl—to me, she’s still my baby girl—I’m hoping she’s all right and I can see her again soon. I know some people think I must be crazy. But I’m not ready to give up on her, not yet. I miss her!”
Courtney’s mother, Sunny Matheson, started to cry—or at least, she feigned crying. Careful not to smear her makeup, she kept touching her cheeks to dab away tears that weren’t there. Sunny was in her late fifties with a buxom figure and big, jet-black hair that must have been a wig. She looked as if she might have been pretty at one time, but her tan skin was sun-wrinkled and she wore too much makeup.
She was on the air, live, in a split-screen conversation with Sally on The Sally Justice Show. Sunny had on a pink dress for the interview. She was on a patio somewhere in Saint Petersburg, Florida. There were palm trees and a canal in the background.
Sally wasn’t happy with her as a guest. Fifteen minutes before the show started, Sally had glimpsed the feed of the crew setting up the interview. Ensconced on the lawn chair, Courtney’s mother had been smoking a cigarette while they’d adjusted her mic. She’d been complaining to Sally’s production person about the fact that her daughter’s attorneys wouldn’t give her a straight answer about Courtney’s will. “I mean, this is crazy,” Sunny had grumbled before they went on the air. “Neither one of them have been declared dead yet. Meanwhile, where’s the money going? Courtney had a one-million-dollar movie deal, and those goddamn lawyers won’t tell me a thing. If he killed her—and it certainly looks that way—then he shouldn’t have gotten a goddamn nickel of her money, right? But the lawyers won’t say. I deserve to know. I’m her mother, her only living relation.”
Sunny wasn’t the type of grieving mother Sally had wanted for the show. She was no sweet, gray-haired old mom with the apple pie cooling on the windowsill. She came across as a floozy—and a big phony.
“Courtney had an older sister, Cassie,” Sunny said for the TV audience. She dabbed at some more invisible tears. “And Cassie died of a drug overdose several years back. She was still just a teenager when she was taken from me. And now, Courtney, my baby, my special baby, who had such a tough time growing up deaf, she’s been taken from me, too. A mother shouldn’t outlive her children, y’know? It’s just not right.”
Putting on a pained look, Sally nodded for the camera. She had to give Courtney’s mother snaps for that. It was pretty effective.
At the start of the interview, they’d already touched upon the fact that Dr. Russell Knoll was a handsome, too-good-to-be-true snake—and a terrible husband to the long-suffering Courtney. Sally still had a couple of questions, but decided to quit while they were ahead.
“From the bottom of my heart,” she said in a quiet, reverent tone, “I’m so sorry for your loss. And I want to thank you, Sunny, for being our guest on tonight’s show.”
Courtney’s mother nodded and brushed away another nonexistent tear.
Sally turned to the other camera for a medium shot showing her at her desk. “Just think about it, people, if the police had acted more quickly, arresting Dr. Russell Knoll and throwing him in jail, he’d be alive today—and perhaps we’d have some answers as to what happened to Sunny Matheson’s special baby girl. A grieving mother’s questions might be answered. Do you think the police botched this case? When we come back from the break, we’ll hear from some of you viewers at home. It’s right here on The Sally Justice Show. Stick around!”
In her earpiece, Sally heard them cue up the theme music for the break. Then the light on the camera switched from green to red, and Sally sat back. She glanced at the monitor and decided she looked all right. Then she eyed the production people in the booth to her right. “Gail, you better have some good callers. I’m dying here!”
From the booth, her producer gave her the thumbs-up sign.
Sally felt off her game. The show had been mediocre so far. Of course, it was no help that, last night, Anna Malone’s brother had announced for several news services that he’d been paid to lie about his sister on The Sally Justice Show. The advice from execs at 24/7 News was that Sally not address this new development at all—especially if it was true. Sally’s writers agreed, the rationale being, some people didn’t know about Stuart Malone’s statement. So why bring it to everyone’s attention?
The overnight ratings for Monday’s show weren’t so hot. People must have started to lose interest in the Courtney Knoll case over the weekend. Unless something new and exciting happened, Sally would have to move on to another topic for tomorrow’s show. The writers were advocating coverage of a dispute that grew violent between two women vying for a parking spot at a Walmart store in Omaha. They already had both women on standby for tomorrow’s show.
“Sally?” One of her producers spoke in her earpiece. It was Gail in the control booth. “ ‘Sometimes you feel like a nut, sometimes you don’t.’ We got one on line three. Are you up for it? I figure the show could use a boost tonight.”
Sally was known for the way she handled crazy, disgruntled callers on her show. Sometimes she and her producers deliberately gave airtime to a nutjob calling in—just to shake things up. Sally was so sarcastic and unflappable that these exchanges often became newsworthy and went viral online. In fact, there were three different ten-minute video compilations of Sally’s Wackiest Calls on YouTube, and each one had over six million hits.
Sally took a deep breath and braced herself. “Sure, why not?”
“It’s Bud from Seattle. We’ll do the five-second delay to please the censors—in case Bud’s a potty mouth.”
“You fucking well better,” Sally joked. “Put him on first.”
She heard another voice in her earpiece: “And we’re back in five . . . four . . .”
Sally straightened up in her chair and watched the camera light turn green. “Welcome back!” she announced. “If you’ve just joined us, we’re asking you, the viewers, what you think of the police investigation into Courtney Knoll’s disappearance. It’s been eleven days since the beautiful, deaf, bestselling author went missing—and a week since her suspect-husband’s apparent suicide. And the police still haven’t found either one of their bodies. What kind of performance rating would you give the police investigators here? We have Bud from Seattle on line three. Bud, what’s your opinion?”
In response there was a long, asthmatic sigh.
“Go ahead, Bud, don’t be shy,” Sally said.
“I . . . saw . . . her . . . get . . . killed,” he said in a raspy voice.
His creepy, teasing manner sent chills up Sally’s spine.
It took her a second to recover. “You did, did you?” she asked. “Why didn’t you report it to the police? As we now know, they certainly could have used the help.”
“I . . . know . . . who . . . did . . . it.”
“Well, Bud, don’t keep us in suspense.” Sally waited a beat for a reply. Then she continued—with a little smirk for the camera: “Was it Professor Plum with the candlestick in the conservatory?”
“Courtney Knoll was killed in her living room at twelve-fifty on Friday morning,” the raspy-voiced caller said. The slow, teasing, singsong tone was gone. “I looked at my watch when she went down.”
“You say you saw this?” Sally asked, still dubious. “And where were you at the time, Bud?”
“In a boat, not far from her home on Lake Union.”
“Just what were you doing there at that particular time, Bud? Fishing?”
“I was watching her.” He let out another sigh, which sounded more like a croak. “I . . . like . . . to . . . watch . . . deaf . . . girls.”
Unnerved, Sally tried to keep a neutral expression on her face for the camera. The guy was obviously sick, but she wasn’t going to let him get the upper hand while they were on the air. “Really?” she asked. “Why—why deaf women?”
“They . . . can’t . . . hear . . . me . . . when . . . I’m . . . getting . . . close.”
Sally thought of Taylor. Her finger hovered over the end call button. “Y’know, Bud, I don’t think I want to listen to any more of this.”
“Shut up and listen for a second. The three of them came back from the restaurant at a quarter after ten. Courtney was wearing a brown dress.”
“How did you know that?” Sally asked.
She remembered those two women who had been dining at Canlis the night Courtney and her husband were there with Anna Malone. In the pre-interview, the woman with the mustache had mentioned that Courtney had been wearing a brown, sleeveless dress.
He didn’t say anything on the other end. For a panic-stricken moment, Sally thought he’d hung up. “How do you know what Courtney was wearing?” she pressed.
“I . . . told . . . you,” he said, using that mocking tone again. “I . . . saw . . . them.”
“Were you at the restaurant?” Sally asked. “Is that how you know?”
“I was watching the house. Aren’t . . . you . . . listening? I’ve been watching her and her husband for a long time. I probably knew before anyone else about him and the newslady. I’ve watched them, too. That night, Courtney’s husband had on a black suit, but no tie. Anna Malone wore a red dress. The . . . lady . . . in . . . red. She weaved a little when she walked into their living room. I could see she was drunk.”
My God, this guy’s for real, Sally thought.
“So you were there that night?” she asked. “And you saw Courtney get killed? I’ll ask you again, why didn’t you call the police?”
“Because . . . I’ve . . . been . . . bad,” he replied. “They’d want to know why I was watching the house.”
“How can we be sure that you weren’t just one of a hundred or so people at the restaurant that night? Or maybe you saw them in the restaurant parking lot.”
“Courtney changed into this floor-length purple robe thing when she got home.”
“You could just be making that up. No one would know.”
“Anna Malone was there. She’d know. Anna Malone knows who killed her, too.”
“Anna Malone conveniently can’t remember anything from that night,” Sally said. “How do we know you’re telling the truth about what you saw?”
“When they find Courtney’s body—and they will eventually—she’ll be wearing that purple robe.”
There was a click on the other end of the line.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Wednesday, July 22—3:29 P.M.
“You’re floating in the beautiful, cool water. See the ripples catching the sun, Anna? You have no worries. Just relax . . .”
Anna listened to Gloria Tolman’s soothing voice. She kept taking controlled breaths in through her nose, holding, and then slowly breathing out through her mouth. She visualized the damn water and those stupid sun-kissed ripples. But it simply wasn’t working today.
She opened her eyes and stared at Dr. Tolman. “I’m sorry, Gloria, I’m trying.”
“That’s just the trouble, Anna. You’re trying too hard.”
They were sitting in the same spots they’d sat in yesterday: Dr. Tolman in the easy chair; Anna on the sofa. Taylor had stepped out a half hour ago. Outside Taylor’s living room picture window, Lake Washington looked beautifully serene.
But Anna couldn’t put herself in a tranquil state.
“Too much is riding on this,” she said. “How can I relax when it’s absolutely essential that I get hypnotized and remember things today? Yesterday was just a test run. I wasn’t under any pressure then. I’m sorry, but the sound of your voice and the visualization and the breathing—it’s just not doing the job right now. Do you have any other methods we could try? Maybe a pocket watch you can dangle in front of me?”
Frowning, Dr. Tolman crossed her arms and shook her head. “Anna, you’re just not receptive today. It happens sometimes. You can’t force these things.”
But Anna was desperate. Suddenly, it was imperative that she remember whether or not Courtney had put on a purple robe the night she’d disappeared.
The caller identified as “Bud” on The Sally Justice Show had dropped a bombshell.
It was covered on last night’s late-evening news and all the network morning news shows. The call had been traced to a burner phone in the Seattle area. Everyone wanted to know if Bud was a crank caller, a credible witness, or perhaps Courtney’s killer.
Sally had been the first one to speculate about her raspy-voiced caller—just moments after hanging up with him. “Well, people, Bud has admitted that he’s obsessed with deaf women,” she’d told her viewers. “And this immediately makes me wonder if he murdered Courtney Knoll. The police still haven’t found a body. Is it possible that Bud murdered Courtney—and then kept her body as a trophy? That’s one rather morbid speculation—probably because I’ve seen too many grisly murder cases. But if it’s really what happened, why did Courtney’s husband kill himself and defend his lover, Anna Malone, in his suicide note? I wouldn’t be too quick to dismiss those two as our prime suspects. As distasteful as it was talking with him, I invite Bud to call me back tomorrow and tell us exactly what he saw at Courtney’s floating home on the night of July ninth.”
Detective Baumann had dropped in on Anna last night. She’d asked if she recalled Courtney donning a purple robe. According to Bud, Anna had been there when Courtney had changed out of her brown sleeveless dress. Anna had admitted to Baumann that she didn’t remember. She’d told the detective about her plans to see a hypnotist the next day to help her recollect more clearly the events from that night.
Anna hadn’t said anything to Baumann about Bud calling her several times in the past two weeks. His bizarre claim that she’d murdered Courtney still unnerved her. He’d been right about her and Russ “fucking.” And he’d made that statement before anyone else had known. Maybe he was right about Russ “taking the rap” for her, too.
It had been a week since Bud had called her.
Now he was phoning in to The Sally Justice Show, live, on the air. Anna imagined him tonight, telling Sally and her audience that he’d seen that bitch, Anna Malone, murder Courtney.
It would be her word against that of a stalker. Nevertheless, Sally would be thrilled to have him in her corner.
Ironically, it was up to Anna to confirm the detail about the purple robe in order for anyone to take Bud seriously.
Anna couldn’t help recalling Russ’s warning the night after Courtney had vanished—that I don’t remember wouldn’t cut it with the police or the public. He’d been right. She couldn’t keep saying that, not without people thinking she had something to hide.
With a sigh, Dr. Tolman collected her digital recorder and stashed it in her purse. “Why don’t we cut our losses here and call it quits for the day?” She glanced at her wristwatch. “We’ll meet same time tomorrow, and then you can pay me for half a session to make up for the early quit today.”
Reluctantly, Anna nodded and got to her feet. “Thanks. I think that’s a good idea.”
Dr. Tolman stood up, too. “If you have any Valium, bring it tomo
rrow. It might take some of the edge off.”
“I don’t have any,” Anna said, following her to Taylor’s door.
“Well, I can’t write you a prescription. But tell you what. Go to Bartell or Rite Aid and get yourself an over-the-counter stress supplement, something with L-theanine. It’s not Valium, but it’ll relax you a bit and help take your mind off things.” She unlocked and opened the door, but then hesitated. “Oh, I just realized. Should one of us wait for Taylor to get back?”
Anna checked her watch. The session was supposed to go on for another twenty-five minutes. “I can wait here,” she volunteered. “I don’t have anything going on.”
Once Dr. Tolman left, Anna returned to the living room and sat down. She took her phone out of her purse and switched it back on. She’d turned it off earlier for the session. She had seventeen new e-mails, five new texts, and two missed calls.
Bud had put the spotlight back on her. The news vans and reporters had returned to the narrow little access road to her dock this morning. The requests for interviews were pouring in. E-mails from former fans and strangers had become more supportive. The tide had changed after Russ’s suicide. Now that her lover was dead, people were ready to forgive her.
One of the missed calls was from George. Anna played it: “Hey, I can’t remember what time you’re getting your head shrunk. But good luck with the hypnosis. I hope you’re able to recollect a lot of things. God, that guy sounded creepy on The Sally Justice Show last night. Nothing is new here. I hate working with these other reporters. They don’t get my sense of humor. I moved some stuff into my new apartment. When things get back to normal for you, I’d love for you to come over and see it. Anyway, nothing else is new. I miss you. I’m babbling. Talk to you later.”
Hearing his voice made Anna feel better—like things might really return to normal again.
She was about to call him back when she heard a key in Taylor’s door. She checked the time on her phone: 3:53 p.m. Taylor was early.
The Night She Disappeared Page 26
