Harlan Coben

by Play Dead

  “Anything else?”

  Monty shook his head. “Oh, wait. One more thing. The call was local.”

  “How could you tell?”

  “The lines in this hotel are terrible when a call comes from overseas. But there was no static on the line. The call had to have been made from right around here.”

  Graham thanked Monty and then he steered Laura toward a bamboo chair in the corner of the lobby. She sat silently, her bleak eyes staring out toward the pool and beach.

  “Laura?”

  Her head slowly swerved toward Graham’s voice. “Yes?”

  “You okay?”

  She ignored the question. “Somebody called him.”

  “Seems that way,” Graham agreed. “Let’s try to put this little puzzle together and see what we come up with, okay?”

  She nodded.

  Graham began pacing in a tight circle. “First step: you go to your meeting at the Peterson Building in Cairns. David gets dressed and goes outside for a little swim and basketball. Step two: you call the hotel. David is still out. He has left you an amusing little note. Step three: David comes back to the hotel. He goes up to his room. He receives a phone call from an American who was staying in the area—”

  “That rules out T.C.,” Laura interrupted. “There is no way he could have made that call locally and gotten back to Boston in time for my phone call.”

  Graham pondered that for a while. “Seems logical to me. But that doesn’t really tell us much. Just because he didn’t place the call doesn’t mean he wasn’t involved in Mr. Baskin’s drowning. Now, where was I?”

  “David received a phone call.”

  “Right. David receives a local phone call from an American. Then he quickly writes you a rather cryptic note and leaves the hotel. We can probably assume that he went out to meet the caller. That takes us to step four: David went to the Pacific International Hotel in Cairns.”

  “Maybe a taxi driver remembers taking him,” Laura said.

  “A long shot, but I’ll check it out. Anyway, we have a witness who placed David at the hotel at about the right time, so let’s pick it up from there. Step five: David arrives at the hotel. He’s a little distracted, probably from something the mystery caller said to him. He goes upstairs for about an hour, presumably to meet the caller. When David comes down, he’s disoriented. Something happened upstairs that upset him.”

  “But what?” Laura asked, speaking more to herself than to Graham.

  “No idea,” the big man replied. “David then takes a walk around the block. He may have even gone into the Peterson Building, where you were having your meeting. Then he comes back to the hotel and places a couple of calls to the United States. Who did he call? I don’t know. Maybe he didn’t get through and decided to call later. He takes another walk around for a couple of hours. We have a witness who saw him standing by the beach at the Marlin Jetty at approximately eleven thirty at night. From here, we have a blank space. The next time anyone saw him, he was dead. Your banker friend, Corsel, claims to have heard from him at midnight. Could be. Or could be David was already dead by then and the caller disguised his voice.”

  Laura fidgeted in her seat. “That no longer seems very likely, does it, Graham?”

  Graham shook his head. “Possible, yes. Likely, no. I think David came back to the hotel and placed a call to the bank. Why? I don’t know. I think it had something to do with whomever he met in the Pacific International. Anyway, we’ll know where David placed his calls for sure once Gina finds those phone bills. Also, we’ll have to question the night porter and maybe the receptionist at the Peterson Building. They may also have seen David. This is just the beginning, Laura. A full investigation is not made in a single day.”

  “So what’s next?”

  Graham shrugged. “How long are you planning on staying?”

  “I have to leave tomorrow night. There’s a ceremony being given in David’s memory in Boston on Saturday.”

  “Okay, no worries. What we have to do next is fill in those important gaps. We have to find out whom David visited when he got to the Pacific International.”

  “That’s the real key, isn’t it?” Laura asked. “The identity of the mystery caller?”

  “Sure seems that way to me,” Graham agreed.

  “And what about this coroner?”

  Graham checked his watch. “Too late to call Dr. Bivelli now. We’ll reach him first thing in the morning.”

  Laura swallowed and lowered her eyes. “Graham, what do you think happened to my husband?”

  Graham placed a large hand on her shoulder. “I don’t know, luv, but we’ll find out.”

  “NOW?” Mark asked.

  T.C. glanced at the clock behind Mark’s head. “Now.”

  With a sigh, T.C. stood and walked over to the telephone. He dialed thirteen numbers and waited for the call to connect.

  Mark began to pace. “She’s never going to buy that Baskin drowned anymore.”

  “I know,” T.C. said. “I’m working on it.”

  After three rings the phone was picked up and an accented voice said, “Bivelli residence.”

  “Can I speak to Dr. Bivelli, please?”

  “May I ask who’s calling?”

  “My name is Terry Conroy.”

  “Hold on a moment, Mr. Conroy.”

  A few seconds later, Dr. Bivelli picked up the phone. “T.C.?”

  “Yeah, Aaron, how’s it going?”

  “Not bad, mate. I didn’t expect to hear from you so soon.”

  “Yeah, well, things have come up.”

  “What sort of things?”

  “I need another favor.”

  “You know I don’t do favors,” Bivelli said. “Stu told you that before you ever contacted me.”

  “I know, Aaron. You’re a true mercenary. But I’ve already paid you for this job.”

  “You mean the Baskin drowning?”

  “Bingo.”

  “I thought everything went smooth as silk.”

  “It did,” T.C. said. “But now we’ve run into a minor obstacle. I just wanted to let you know that some people may come around asking questions.”

  “After all this time?”

  “Yep.”

  “Well, that’s just part of the job. No charge.”

  “Just letting you know.”

  “Appreciate it, T.C., but don’t worry.”

  “Good.”

  “But,” Bivelli added, “one of these days, I’d love to know the whole story.”

  T.C. half smiled. Bivelli knew a little piece of what was going on. Stu another little piece. Hank still another. But none of them knew enough to put the whole story together. “One of these days,” T.C. repeated.

  GRAHAM reached Dr. Bivelli the following morning and set up an appointment for later that same day. Since all the flights between Cairns and Townsville were sold out, Laura chartered a small plane to take them into Townsville. At noon, they arrived at Townsville Memorial Hospital. The office of Aaron Bivelli, M.E., was, of course, on the basement level next to the morgue.

  “Can I help you?” Dr. Bivelli asked with solemn enthusiasm as befitted his somewhat gruesome occupation. He was a short man in his late fifties, completely bald, a protruding paunch testing the buttons on his gray vest. His face was kind and reserved with a bright, trusting smile.

  “My name is Graham Rowe. We spoke on the phone earlier.”

  “Oh, yes,” Bivelli said. “The sheriff of Palm’s Cove.”

  “And this is Laura Baskin.”

  Dr. Bivelli turned toward Laura, his face grim. “I’m very sorry about your husband, Mrs. Baskin.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Please,” Bivelli said with a wave of his hand, “make yourself comfortable.” He walked around to his side of the desk. “I reread your husband’s file after I spoke with Sheriff Rowe this morning, Mrs. Baskin. I truly hope I can be of some service.”

  “Maybe you can help us clear up a couple of loose ends,”
Graham said.

  “I’ll certainly try.”

  “Let me begin by asking you this, Doctor. Could there have been foul play in the death of Mr. David Baskin?”

  Dr. Bivelli sat back in his chair. “That’s a tough question, Sheriff. I mean, I guess it’s a possibility but I doubt it heavily. First of all, Mr. Baskin’s lungs were filled with water when we found him. That means the cause of death was drowning. He was not killed first and then dumped into the ocean. How did he drown? Well, that’s anyone’s guess. He was bopped around a lot out there.”

  “Bopped around a lot?” Laura asked.

  “Yes, Mrs. Baskin,” Dr. Bivelli replied, turning his attention toward her. “Your husband’s body was brutally thrashed around by the rough waters. It was hurled against rocks and crunched against the surf. It was splattered against jagged coral and sliced up very badly. Fish probably gnawed on it.”

  Laura’s face blanched.

  “I’m sorry, Mrs. Baskin,” Dr. Bivelli added quickly. “I’m a pathologist. I never had much use for proper bedside manner.”

  Laura swallowed. “That’s okay. Please continue.”

  “What I’m trying to say is that the body was in horrible shape when we found it. Could someone have knocked him on the head and dumped his body out to sea? Very doubtful but yes.”

  “Why do you say very doubtful?” Laura asked.

  “Because most of the time that’s not how it works. Sometimes a man is murdered and his body is dumped in the water to make it look like an accidental drowning. Sometimes a man is killed and a large weight is tied to his body so that it won’t be found for a while. But like I said before, David Baskin drowned and rarely is a man knocked out and then left in the water in the hopes he will end up dead. It’s too risky. He may survive the ordeal by being rescued by a boat or by waking up or whatever.”

  Graham nodded. “You say Mr. Baskin’s body was in bad shape?”

  “Yes.”

  “Beyond recognition?”

  Dr. Bivelli eyed Laura. “Pretty close.”

  “How did you get a positive identification then?”

  Dr. Bivelli coughed into a fist. “Two ways. First, that American policeman who was a friend of his”—he slipped on a pair of reading glasses and opened the file—“an Officer Terry Conroy, was able to recognize certain features. More important, his medical records were sent to me via a fax machine. The dental X-rays arrived the next day and confirmed what we already knew.” Bivelli looked down at the file again. “According to Officer Conroy, Mr. Baskin should have been wearing a nineteen eighty-nine NBA championship ring, but we couldn’t use that to ID him because his right hand … He wore the ring on his right hand, right, Mrs. Baskin?”

  She nodded. The ring. She had forgotten all about the last championship ring that had adorned David’s hand. And that was the only piece of jewelry that he liked to wear—that and the wedding band they intended to buy when they returned from their honeymoon.

  Bivelli cleared his throat again. “Yes, well, his right hand was gone.”

  “Gone?” Laura repeated.

  Bivelli lowered his head. “As I said, many parts of the deceased were badly damaged.”

  “I see,” Graham replied. “Let me ask you this, Doctor. How exact was the estimated time of death?”

  “For a drowning like this, it’s never more than guesswork,” Dr. Bivelli continued. “I could have been off by as much as twelve to fifteen hours.”

  “You estimated the time of death to have been around seven p.m.,” Graham reminded him. “Would it shock you to hear that we have an eyewitness who saw Mr. Baskin at midnight?”

  “Not at all, Sheriff,” Bivelli replied casually. “Like I said earlier, dissecting a drowning victim with a battered body is not going to produce exact, scientific results. I wish it did. My time estimate was influenced in large part by statements made by Mrs. Baskin. She said her husband went for a swim at around four or five in the afternoon. It would certainly be more logical to assume that he died within a few hours of that time than after midnight.”

  Graham scratched at his beard. “One last question and then we’ll be out of your way. Why were you called in on this case? Why wasn’t the local coroner used?”

  Bivelli shrugged. “I can’t say for sure, but I can make a guess.”

  “Please do.”

  “First off, Mr. Baskin was a foreigner and a rather famous personality,” Bivelli began. “When a death of that magnitude occurs, the Aussie government usually gets involved and I have done quite a bit of work for them in the past. They feel comfortable with me. Townsville is only about an hour flight from Cairns, so they probably thought I would be the better man for this particular situation.”

  “Then Officer Terry Conroy of Boston didn’t contact you?”

  “No, he did not.”

  Graham rose. Laura did the same. “Thank you, Dr. Bivelli. You’ve been very helpful.”

  “Anytime, Sheriff,” he replied with a firm handshake. “And again, Mrs. Baskin, please accept my most sincere condolences.”

  They headed down the hall and into the elevator. When the door slid closed and the lift started to move upward, Laura turned to Graham. “He’s lying.”

  Graham nodded. “Like a rug.”

  JUDY stared at the photograph.

  Tears welled in her eyes as she stared at the all too familiar images. How many years would this go on? How long would this black-and-white photograph be able to jab painfully into her heart? God, how she had loved him. She had loved him like no other man before or since. Had he ever felt the same? Judy thought the answer was yes. She remembered a time when they were both deliriously happy, a time when they were so in love that nothing else mattered … until something took him away. Until something blinded him like a great flash of light.

  I killed him. My jealousy pushed that gun against his head and pulled the trigger.

  She had been so foolish, so impatient, so damn young. Why couldn’t she just have sat back and waited? Eventually, he would have realized his mistake and come back to her.

  Why did I do it? Why couldn’t I have just let it be?

  But these were questions that had haunted her for thirty years, and still she had no answers. If only she could have it to do all over again. If only she hadn’t acted so stupidly. She folded the photograph and put it back in her purse.

  “Miss Simmons?”

  She looked up. Her safety-deposit box rested on the bank clerk’s forearm. “Would you like to follow me, please?” The bank clerk led Judy into a private room. “When you’re finished, just let me know.”

  “Thank you.”

  The bank clerk smiled and left. Judy turned toward her box. Her hand reached down and pulled back the top. The first thing she saw were some old treasury bonds her parents had left her. Her father had died suddenly years ago when he was only fifty-seven; her mother had passed away just last year. She missed them both terribly. So few people in this world love you unconditionally.

  She thumbed past her birth certificate, the old warranties, the useless financial statements. Then she spotted it. Her fingers reached down, gripped the leather cover and pulled. The small booklet came out. With shaking hands, Judy placed it on the table in front of her. She read the fading cover:

  Diary 1960

  Since nineteen fifty-five, Judy had kept yearly diaries. All the events of her seemingly average life were kept safely tucked away on these blue-lined pages. And for the most part, average the words were—gibberish about her loss of virginity, her first time experimenting with marijuana, her secret fantasies. In a phrase, her yearly journals contained nothing beyond the standard diary drivel.

  But not nineteen sixty.

  Judy kept all her diaries stacked neatly in a closet at home; all, that was, except for the one she now held in her hand. Nineteen sixty—the one year she wished she could pull out of her life as she had pulled its diary away from the others. She had never mentioned anything about nineteen sixty in her s
ubsequent diaries. As far as her other writings were concerned, nineteen sixty never existed. She had tried to keep the whole horrible incident locked in this one journal in some bizarre attempt to keep the rest of her life uncontaminated by that year.

  It had not worked.

  Nineteen sixty had spread. It had poisoned them all. It occasionally disappeared from view for as much as a decade or two, but it was still there, always there, always waiting to rear its ugly head when they least expected it to.

  Judy slowly flipped open the diary. She skimmed through the writings of January and February. Her teary eyes gazed upon the handwriting of the college-age Judy—so blithe and carefree with large, elaborate lettering that flowed smoothly from one end of the page to the other. Hard to believe the same person who was reading this diary had also written it:

  March 18, 1960

  I’ve never been so happy, never known such happiness existed. Losing James has ended up being a blessing in disguise. Mary and James are happy and now I’m ecstatic! Could life be better? I doubt it. I am so filled with feelings of love… .

  Judy shook her head and turned the page. She barely recognized the author anymore—just a faint feeling of déjà vu for a friend now long dead. Who was this love-struck girl who had written such corny, clichéd nonsense? If one of Judy’s students had ever handed in trash like this, Judy would have written a giant “See Me” on the top of the first page. But, alas, love was like that. By its definition, love called for corny clichés.

  April 3, 1960

  We’re going to visit my family today. I don’t expect them to be thrilled for me. I doubt they’ll understand. But how can they deny the glow in my face? How can they be upset when they see how happy we are? They will have to accept us… .

  She smiled slightly. Reading the words, Judy once again felt the hope that had coursed through her young body so many years ago. How terrific life had been on that April morning. How beautiful the whole world had seemed. Even now Judy could still feel that tingle of excitement in her stomach. Everything was going to work out. Everything was going to be perfect, just like it was supposed to be.