Two Graves (21 page)

Alban wondered if
he
had guessed who was committing these murders. It was, after all, such a delightful irony…

Suddenly he looked up. Everything was silent—and yet he instantly understood he had only a second or two to act. Quickly, he collected his tools, rolled them up into the leather bundle, stood, darted out of the suite’s bedroom into the living area, then ducked into the bathroom, hiding behind the door.

A moment later there came the click of the room’s lock disengaging and the creak of the door opening. Alban heard the muffled sound of footsteps on the carpeting.

“Mandy?” came a masculine voice. “Mandy, honey, are you here?”

The footsteps receded, moving across the living area toward the bedroom.

As quietly as possible, Alban tiptoed out of the bathroom, opened the room door, stepped out into the hallway—and then, after a moment’s hesitation, nipped back into the bathroom, hiding behind the door once again.

“Mandy…?
Oh, my God!
” A sudden shriek came from the bedroom. “No, no,
no!
” There was a scuffling, thudding sound, as of a body falling to the floor on its knees, followed by gasping and choking.

“Mandy!
Mandy!
”

Alban waited, as the crying from the bedroom dissolved first into hysteria, then cries for help.

The door to the suite burst open again. “Hotel security!” came a gruff voice. “What’s going on?”

“My wife! She’s been murdered!”

More thudding footsteps retreating past the bathroom, followed by a gasp, a sudden burst of talk into the radio, more tiresome cries of horror and disbelief from the bereaved husband.

Now Alban crept out of the bathroom, scurried silently to the door, opened it, stepped out—paused—then closed the door softly behind him. Walking easily down the hallway to the elevator bank, he pressed the
DOWN
button. But then, as the floor indicator above the elevator showed it beginning to rise, he stepped away again, moved farther down the hall, opened the stairwell door, and descended two flights before emerging again.

He looked down the empty hallway with a smile and headed in the direction of the elevator.

Two minutes later, he was walking out the service entrance of the hotel, hat brim low over his eyes, gloved hands deep in his trench coat pockets. He began sauntering casually down Central Park West, early-morning sun setting the pavement agleam, just as police sirens began sounding in the distance.

C
ORRIE SWANSON STOOD ON THE PORCH AT THE SHABBY
front door of a sagging duplex at the corner of Fourth Street and Birch in West Cuyahoga, Pennsylvania, a run-down dying suburb of the city of Allentown. There had been no answer to her numerous rings, and as she gazed up and down the street—lined with crappy twenty-year-old pickup trucks before identical duplexes—she realized it was exactly the kind of place she imagined her father calling home. The thought depressed her enormously.

She pressed the buzzer again, heard it sounding inside the empty house. As she glanced around once more, she saw curtains moving in the attached house, and across the street a neighbor had paused while bringing out the garbage and was staring at the black Lincoln Continental that had brought her.

Why was the damn driver waiting? She tried the door, shook it in impatience.

Leaving her suitcase on the porch, she went back to the car. “There’s no need for you to hang around. You can go now.”

The driver smiled. “Sorry, Ms. Swanson, I have to see you into the house. If no one’s home, I’m supposed to call for instructions.” He even had his cell phone out.

Corrie rolled her eyes. This was unbelievable. How was she going to get rid of this guy?

“Don’t call yet. Let me try again. Maybe he’s asleep.” It was entirely possible the bum
was
asleep, or maybe just passed out drunk. Then again, even though it was Saturday, he might be at work—if he still had work, that is.

She went back, tried the door again. The lock was crap and she had her tools in her bag. Blocking the view of the door with her body, she fished out the tools, inserted them into the lock, wiggled them around, and in less time than she expected felt the give of the pins. The door opened.

She pushed in with her luggage and shut the door behind her. Then, pulling the blinds apart and standing at the window, she waved to the driver, gave him a fake smile and a thumbs-up. The driver responded with a wave of his own, and the black car eased from the curb and went on down the street.

Corrie looked around. The front door opened directly into a living room that, to her surprise, was neat and clean, if a little shabby. Setting down the suitcase, she flopped onto a ratty sofa and exhaled.

The depressing nature of her situation just about overwhelmed her. She should never have agreed to this proposal. She hadn’t once seen her father in the fifteen years since he’d walked out. She could forgive him for that—her mother was a psycho—but what she couldn’t forgive was the fact he’d made no effort to keep in touch with her, write her, call her. No birthday or Christmas presents, no card on her graduation from high school, no phone call, not one, during the many times she was in trouble—nothing. It was a mystery why her memories of him were of a warm, funny, kind father who took her fishing—but then she was only six when he skipped town, and any loser bum could seem funny and kind to a needy, unloved kid.

She looked around. There wasn’t much personality in the place, but at least there were no empty liquor bottles, no trash baskets overflowing with crushed beer cans or old pizza boxes lying about. It just didn’t look like anyone had been there in a while. Where was he? Maybe she should have called.

This was so fucked up. She almost felt like crying.

She heaved herself off the sofa, wandered into the bedroom. It was small but tidy, with a single bed and a well-thumbed copy of
Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions
sitting on the bedside table. The room had two closets. Idly, without much curiosity, she opened one of them. Jeans, chambray work shirts, and a couple of cheap-looking
suits hung on wire hangers. Closing the door, she went to the second closet. This was strange: the shelves were full of packages wrapped in brown paper, dozens of them, of all different sizes, carefully, almost lovingly, stacked cheek by jowl with bundles of letters, bright oversize envelopes that could only be holiday or birthday cards, and numerous postcards held together by rubber bands. She peered at a few. They were all addressed to her: Corrie Swanson, 29 Wyndham Parke Estates, Medicine Creek, Kansas. They seemed to be arranged in chronological order, going back more than a dozen years. Every stamp or postmark on every package bore a cancellation sticker, and every single one had been marked with an official-looking message: R
ETURN TO
S
ENDER
.

Corrie stared at the contents of the closet for a minute, scratching her head. Then she exited the bedroom, went out the front door, and knocked on the duplex next door. More motions of the curtain, then a tight voice.

“Who is it?”

“Corrie Swanson.”

“Who?”

“Corrie Swanson. I’m Jack Swanson’s daughter. I’m here…” She swallowed. “On a family visit.”

A muffled noise that could have been a grunt of surprise, then the sound of locks turning. The door opened and a squat, unpleasant-looking woman stood in the doorway, hammy arms folded, face the texture of a Brillo pad. A smell of cigarette smoke exuded from the room behind her. She looked Corrie up and down with a narrow eye that lingered on her streak of purple hair. “Jack Swanson’s daughter? I
see
.” More scrutiny. “He’s not here.”

“I know that,” said Corrie, struggling to keep the habitual sarcasm out of her voice. “I’m just wondering where he is.”

“He left.”

Corrie swallowed another sharp reply and managed to say, “Do you know where he’s gone and when he might be back?” She bestowed a fake smile on the harridan.

More scrutiny. Judging by her facial grimaces, the woman seemed
to be considering whether or not to tell her something important. “He’s in trouble,” the woman finally said. “Ran out of town.”

“What kind of trouble?”

“Stole a car from the dealership he worked at, used it to rob a bank.”

“He did what?” She felt genuine surprise. She knew her father was a loser, but the impression she had accumulated over the years of him—filtered through the bitterness of her mother’s invective—had been that of a charming rogue who cut corners, slept with too many women, a get-rich-quick schemer who couldn’t hold a real job and whose best moments in life were spent bellied up to the bar, telling jokes and stories to his admiring friends. A criminal he was not.

Of course, a lot could have changed in the fifteen years he’d been gone.

As she considered this, she thought that—perhaps—this wasn’t such a bad thing after all. She could live in his house and not have to deal with him. Provided he’d paid his rent. But even if he hadn’t, the rent on a dump like this wouldn’t be much, and Pendergast had given her three thousand dollars.

“Robbed a bank?” Corrie couldn’t help but give the lady a shit-eating grin. “Wow. Good old Dad. Hope he made away with a bundle.”

“You may think it’s funny, but I assure you
we
do not!” And with that the woman pressed her lips together and firmly shut the door.

Corrie retreated to her half of the house, shut and locked the front door, and once again flopped down on the sofa, kicking up her feet and lying back. To avoid any unpleasantness, she would have to be proactive, inform the cops she was here, contact the landlord, make sure the rent, power, and water were paid up. Once again, she told herself it was better that her loser father was on the lam. This way, she wouldn’t have to deal with his bullshit.

Still, somewhere deep inside, she felt thwarted. Disappointed. Sad, even. She had to admit that, despite everything, she wanted to see him—if only to ask him straight out why he had abandoned her, why he had left her at the mercy of a mother he knew full well to be a horrible drunken bitch. There had to be an explanation for that—
and for all those letters and packages stashed in his closet. Or at least, that’s what she hoped beyond all hope.

She realized she was thirsty and went into the kitchen, turned on the tap, let the rusty water run until it ceased being lukewarm, filled up a glass and drank it down. So he was on the run. Where would he have gone?

And even as she asked the question, she realized she knew the answer.

F
ELDER HAD NEVER BEEN TO SOUTHPORT, CONNECTICUT,
before, and he found himself unexpectedly charmed. It was an attractive, sleepy harbor town in otherwise bustling Fairfield County. As he turned off Pequot Avenue onto Center Street, heading for the historic district, he thought one could do a lot worse than to live in a place like this.

It had a quintessential New England atmosphere. The houses were mostly Colonials, early twentieth century by the look of them, with white clapboards and picket fences and manicured grounds dense with trees. The town library was impressive as well—a rambling, Romanesque structure of dressed stone with whimsical details. The only blot on the town’s escutcheon seemed to be an old mansion a few doors from the library, a dilapidated Queen Anne pile straight out of
The Addams Family
, complete with gaping shutters, loose slates, and a weed-choked lawn. The only thing missing, he thought wryly as he drove by, was a grinning Uncle Fester in an upper window.

His spirits rose again as he entered the village proper. Pulling into a parking space across from the yacht club, he consulted a handwritten note, then—with a spring in his step—crossed the road to a cheery, one-story wooden frame building overlooking the harbor.

The interior of the Southport Historical Museum smelled pleasantly of old books and furniture polish. It was stocked with a variety of nicely preserved antiques, and appeared deserted save for a well-coifed woman of a certain age—also nicely preserved—who sat in a rocking chair, doing needlepoint.