by Harlan Coben
Win spoke softly and quickly. “According to Norm, Brenda received a call at practice. She took the call and ran out. The team bus waited awhile, but Brenda ended up being a no-show. When the bus left, an assistant coach waited with her car. The coach is still at the practice site. That’s all Norm knew. I then called Arthur Bradford. He knew about the search warrant. He claimed that by the time you two made your arrangement vis-a-vis protecting Brenda, the warrant had been acted upon and the gun had been found. He has since contacted some friends in high places, and they have agreed to move very slowly on Ms. Slaughter.”
Myron nodded. That explained the semidiplomacy going on here. McLaughlin and Tiles clearly wanted to arrest her, but the higher-ups were holding them back. “Anything else?”
“Arthur was very concerned about Brenda’s disappearance.”
“I bet.”
“He wants you to call him immediately.”
“Well, we don’t always get what we want,” Myron said. He glanced back at the two detectives. “Okay, I got to clear out of here.”
“You have a thought?”
“The detective from Livingston. A guy named Wickner. He almost cracked at the Little League field.”
“And you think perhaps he’ll crack this time?”
Myron nodded. “He’ll crack.”
“Would you like me to come along?”
“No, I’ll handle it. I need you to stay here. McLaughlin and Tiles can’t legally hold me, but they might try. Stall them for me.”
Win almost smiled. “No problem.”
“See also if you can find the guy who answered the phone at the practice. Whoever called Brenda might have identified themselves. Maybe one of her teammates or coaches saw something.”
“I’ll look into it.” Win handed Myron the ripped hundred and his car keys. He motioned toward his cell phone. “Keep the line open.”
Myron did not bother with good-byes. He suddenly bounded out of the room. He heard Tiles call after him, “Stop! Son of a—” Tiles started running after him. Win stepped in front of him, blocking his path. “What the f—” Tiles never finished the expletive. Myron continued to run. Win closed the door. Tiles would not get out.
Once out on the street, Myron tossed the bill to the waiting cop and hopped into the Jag. Eli Wickner’s lake house was listed in directory assistance. Myron dialed the number. Wickner answered on the first ring.
“Brenda Slaughter is missing,” Myron told him.
Silence.
“We need to talk, Eli.”
“Yes,” the retired detective said. “I think we do.”
The ride took an hour. Night had firmly set in by now, and the lake area seemed extra dark, the way lake areas often do. There were no streetlights. Myron slowed the car. Old Lake Drive was narrow and only partially paved. At the end of the road his headlights crossed a wooden sign shaped like a fish. The sign said THE WICKNERS. Wickners. Myron remembered Mrs. Wickner. She had overseen the food stand at the Little League field. Her scmiblond hair had been overtreated to the point where it resembled hay, her laugh a constant, deep throttle. Lung cancer had claimed her ten years ago. Eli Wickner had retired to this cabin alone.
Myron pulled into the driveway. His tires chewed the gravel. Lights came on, probably by motion detector. Myron stopped the car and stepped into the still night. The cabin was what was often called saltbox. Nice. And right on the water. There were boats in the dock. Myron listened for the sound of the lapping water, but there was none. The lake was incredibly calm, as if someone had put a glass top on it for night protection. Scattered lights shone off the glacial surface, still and without deviation. The moon dangled like a loose earring. Bats stood along a tree branch like the Queen’s Guards in miniature.
Myron hurried to the front door. Lamps were on inside, but Myron saw no movement. He knocked on the door. No answer. He knocked again. Then he felt the shotgun barrel against the back of his skull.
“Don’t turn around,” Eli said.
Myron didn’t.
“You armed?”
“Yes.”
“Assume the position. And don’t make me shoot you, Myron. You’ve always been a good kid.”
“There’s no need for the gun, Eli.” It was a dumb thing to say, of course, but he had not said it for Wickner’s benefit. Win was listening in on the other end. Myron did some quick calculating. It had taken him an hour to get here. It would take Win maybe half that.
He needed to stall.
As Wickner patted him down, Myron smelled alcohol. Not a good sign. He debated making a move, but this was an experienced cop, and he was, per Wickner’s request, in the position. Hard to do much from there.
Wickner found Myron’s gun immediately. He emptied the bullets onto the ground and pocketed the gun.
“Open the door,” Wickner said.
Myron turned the knob. Wickner gave him a little nudge. Myron stepped inside. And his heart dropped to his knees. Fear constricted his throat, making it very hard to breathe. The room was decorated as one might expect a fishing cabin to be decorated: taxidermy catches above a fireplace, wood-paneled walls, a wet bar, cozy chairs, firewood piled high, a worn semishag carpet of beige. What wasn’t expected, of course, were the dark red boot prints slashing a path through the beige.
Blood. Fresh blood that filled the room with a smell like wet rust.
Myron turned to look at Eli Wickner. Wickner kept his distance. The shotgun was leveled at Myron’s chest. Easiest target. Wickner’s eyes were open a bit too wide and even more red-rimmed than at the Little League field. His skin was like parchment paper. Spider veins had nestled into his right cheek. There may have been spider veins on his left cheek too, but it was hard to tell with the spray of blood on it.
“You?”
Wickner remained silent.
“What’s going on, Eli?”
“Walk into the back room,” Wickner said.
“You don’t want to do this.”
“I know that, Myron. Now just turn around and start walking.”
Myron followed the bloody prints as though they’d been painted there for this reason—a macabre Freedom Trail or something. The wall was lined with Little League team photographs, the early ones dating back some thirty-odd years. In each picture Wickner stood proudly with his young charges, smiling into the powerful sun on a clear day. A sign held by two boys in the front row read FRIENDLY’S ICE CREAM SENATORS or BURRELLES PRESS CLIPPING TIGERS or SEYMOUR’S LUNCHEONETTE INDIANS. Always sponsors. The children squinted and shifted and smiled toothlessly. But they all basically looked the same. Over the past thirty years the kids had changed shockingly little. But Eli had aged, of course. Year by year the photographs on the wall checked off his life. The effect was more than a little eerie.
They headed into the back room. An office of some kind. There were more photos on the wall. Wickner receiving Livingston’s Big L Award. The ribbon cutting when the backstop was named after him. Wickner in his police uniform with ex-Governor Brendan Byrne. Wickner winning the Raymond J. Clarke Policeman of the Year award. A smattering of plaques and trophies and mounted baseballs. A framed document entitled “What Coach Means to Me” given to him by one of his teams. And more blood.
Cold fear wrapped around Myron and drew tight.
In the corner, lying on his back, his arms extended as though readying himself for crucifixion, was Chief of Detectives Roy Pomeranz. His shirt looked like someone had squeezed out a bucket of syrup over it. His dead eyes were frozen open and sucked dry.
“You killed your own partner,” Myron said. Again for Win. In case he arrived too late. For posterity or to incriminate or some such nonsense.
“Not more than ten minutes ago,” Wickner said.
“Why?”
“Sit down, Myron. Right there, if you don’t mind.”
Myron sat in an oversize chair with wooden slats.
Keeping the gun at chest level, Wickner moved to the other side of a desk. He opened a drawer,
dropped Myron’s gun in it, then tossed Myron a set of handcuffs. “Cuff yourself to the side arm. I don’t want to have to concentrate so hard on watching you.”
Myron looked at his surroundings. It was pretty much now or never. Once the cuffs were in place, there would not be another chance. He looked for a way. Nothing. Wickner was too far away, and a desk separated them. Myron spotted a letter opener on the desk. Oh, right, like maybe he would just reach out and throw it like some martial arts death star and hit the jugular. Bruce Lee would be so proud.
As though reading his mind, Wickner raised the gun a bit.
“Put them on now, Myron.”
No chance. He would just have to stall. And hope Win arrived in time. Myron clicked the cuff on his left wrist. Then he closed the other end around the heavy chair arm.
Wickner’s shoulders slumped, relaxing a bit. “I should have guessed they’d have a tap on the phone,” he said.
“Who?”
Wickner seemed not to hear him. “Thing is, you can’t approach this house without my knowing. Forget the gravel out there. I got motion sensors all over the place. House lights up like a Christmas tree if you approach from any direction. Use it to scare away the animals—otherwise they get in the garbage. But you see, they knew that. So they sent someone I would trust. My old partner.”
Myron was trying to keep up. “Are you saying Pomeranz came here to kill you?”
“No time for your questions, Myron. You wanted to know what happened. Now you will. And then …” He looked away, the rest of the sentence vaporizing before reaching his lips.
“The first time I encountered Anita Slaughter was at the bus stop on the corner of Northfield Avenue, where Roosevelt School used to be.” His voice had fallen into a cop monotone, almost as though he were reading back a report. “We’d gotten an anonymous call from someone using the phone booth at Sam’s across the street. They said a woman was cut up bad and bleeding. Check that. They said a black woman was bleeding. Only place you saw black women in Livingston was by the bus stop. They came in to clean houses, or they didn’t come here at all. Just that simple. If they were there for other reasons in those days, well, we politely pointed out the errors in their ways and escorted them back on the bus.
“Anyway, I was in the squad car. So I took the call. Sure enough, she was bleeding pretty good. Someone had given her a hell of a beating. But I tell you what struck me right away. The woman was gorgeous. Dark as coal, but even with all those scratches on her face, she was simply stunning. I asked her what happened, but she wouldn’t tell me. I figured it was a domestic dispute. A spat with the husband. I didn’t like it, but back in those days you didn’t do anything about it. Hell, not much different today. Anyway I insisted on taking her to St. Barnabas. They patched her up. She was pretty shook up, but she was basically okay. The scratches were pretty deep, like she’d been attacked by a cat. But hey, I did my bit and forgot all about it—until three weeks later, when I got the call about Elizabeth Bradford.”
A clock chimed and echoed. Eli lowered the shotgun and looked off. Myron checked his cuffed wrist. It was secure. The chair was heavy. Still no chance.
“Her death wasn’t an accident, was it, Eli?”
“No,” Wickner said. “Elizabeth Bradford committed suicide.” He reached out on his desk and picked up an old baseball. He stared at it like a Gypsy reading fortunes. A Little League ball, the awkward signature of twelve-year-olds scrawled over the surface.
“Nineteen seventy-three,” the old coach said with a pained smile. “The year we won the state championship. Hell of a team.” He put down the ball. “I love Livingston. I dedicated my life to that town. But every good place has a Bradford family in it. To add temptation, I guess. Like the serpent in the Garden of Eden. It starts small, you know? You let a parking ticket go. Then you see one of them speeding and you turn the other way. Like I said, small. They don’t openly bribe you, but they have ways of taking care of people. They start at the top. You drag a Bradford in for drunk driving, someone above you just springs them anyway, and you get unofficially sanctioned. And other cops get pissed off because the Bradfords gave all of us tickets to a Giants game. Or they paid for a weekend retreat. Stuff like that. But underneath we all know it’s wrong. We justify it away, but the truth is, we did wrong. I did wrong.” He motioned to the mass of flesh on the ground. “And Roy did wrong. I always knew it would come back and get us one day. Just didn’t know when. Then you tapped me on the shoulder at the ball field and well, I knew.”
Wickner stopped, smiled. “Getting off the subject a bit, aren’t I?”
Myron shrugged. “I’m not in any hurry.”
“Unfortunately I am.” Another smile that twisted Myron’s heart. “I was telling you about the second time I encountered Anita Slaughter. Like I said, it was the day Elizabeth Bradford committed suicide. A woman identifying herself as a maid called the station at six in the morning. I didn’t realize it was Anita until I arrived. Roy and I were in the midst of the investigation when the old man called us into that fancy library. You ever seen it? The library in the silo?”
Myron nodded.
“The three of them were there—the old man, Arthur, and Chance. Still in these fancy silk pajamas and bathrobes, for chrissake. The old man asked us for a little favor. That’s what he called it. A little favor like he was asking us to help him move a piano. He wanted us to report the death as an accident. For the family reputation. Old Man Bradford wasn’t crass enough to put a dollar amount on doing this, but he made it clear we would be well compensated. Roy and I figured, What’s the harm? Accident or suicide—in the long run, who really cares? That kind of stuff is changed all the time. No big deal, right?”
“Then you believed them?” Myron said.
The question nudged Wickner out of his daze. “What do you mean?”
“That it was a suicide. You took their word?”
“It was a suicide, Myron. Your Anita Slaughter confirmed it.”
“How?”
“She saw it happen.”
“You mean she found the body.”
“No, I mean she saw Elizabeth Bradford leap.”
That surprised him.
“According to Anita’s statement, she arrived at work, walked up the driveway, spotted Elizabeth Bradford standing alone on the ledge, and watched her dive on her head.”
“Anita could have been coached,” Myron said.
Wickner shook his head. “Nope.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“Because Anita Slaughter made this statement before the Bradfords got to her—both on the phone and when we first got there. Hell, most of the Bradfords were still getting out of bed. Once the spin control began, Anita changed her story. That’s when she came up with that stuff about finding the body when she arrived.”
Myron frowned. “I don’t get it. Why change the time of the jump? What difference could it make?”
“I guess they wanted it to be at night so it would look more like an accident. A woman inadvertently slipping off a wet balcony late at night is an easier sell than at six in the morning.”
Myron thought about this. And didn’t like it.
“There was no sign of a struggle,” Wickner continued. “There was even a note.”
“What did it say?”
“Mostly gibberish. I don’t really remember. The Bradfords kept it. Claimed it was private thoughts. We were able to confirm it was her handwriting. That’s all I cared about.”
“You mentioned in the police report that Anita still showed signs of the earlier assault.”
Wickner nodded.
“So you must have been suspicious.”
“Suspicious of what? Sure, I wondered. But I didn’t see any connection. A maid suffers a beating three weeks before the suicide of her employer. What’s one thing got to do with the other?”
Myron nodded slowly. It made sense, he guessed. He checked the clock behind Wickner’s head. Fifteen minutes more, he estimated.
And then Win would have to approach carefully. Making his way around the motion detectors would take time. Myron took a deep breath. Win would make it. He always did.
“There’s more,” Wickner said.
Myron looked at him and waited.
“I saw Anita Slaughter one last time,” Wickner said. “Nine months later. At the Holiday Inn.”
Myron realized that he was holding his breath. Wickner put down the weapon on the desk—well out of Myron’s reach—and grabbed hold of a whiskey bottle. He took a swig and then picked up the shotgun again.
He aimed it at Myron.
“You’re wondering why I’m telling you all this.” Wickner’s words came out a bit more slurred now. The barrel was still pointed at Myron, growing larger, an angry dark mouth trying to swallow him whole.
“The thought crossed my mind,” Myron said.
Wickner smiled. Then he let loose a deep breath, lowered his aim a bit, and started in again. “I wasn’t on duty that night. Neither was Roy. He called me at home and said the Bradfords needed a favor. I told him the Bradfords could go to hell, I wasn’t their personal security service. But it was all bluster.
“Anyway, Roy told me to put on a uniform and meet him at the Holiday Inn. I went, of course. We hooked up in the parking lot. I asked Roy what was up. He said that one of the Bradford kids had screwed up again. I said, screwed up how? Roy said he didn’t know the details. It was girl trouble. He had gotten fresh, or they had taken too many drugs. Something like that. Understand now that this was twenty years ago. Terms like date rape didn’t exist back then. You go back to a hotel room with a guy, well, let’s just say you got what you got. I’m not defending it. I’m just saying it was the way that it was.
“So I asked him what we were supposed to do. Roy said that we just had to seal off the floor. See, there was a wedding going on and a big convention. The place was mobbed, and the room was in a fairly public spot. So they needed us to keep people away so they could clean up whatever mess there was. Roy and I positioned ourselves at either end of the corridor. I didn’t like it, but I didn’t really think I had much of a choice. What was I going to do, report them? The Bradfords already had their hooks into me. The payoff for fixing the suicide would come out. So would all the rest. And not just about me but about my buddies on the force. Cops react funny when they’re threatened.” He pointed to the floor. “Look what Roy was willing to do to his own partner.”
