You belong to me (30 page)

88

When Douglas Layton went into Jane Clausen's hospital room at three-thirty, he found her sitting in a chair. She was dressed in a soft blue cashmere robe, and a blanket was tucked around her.

"Douglas," she said, weariness showing in her voice, "have you brought me my surprise? I've been trying to imagine what it could possibly be."

"Close your eyes, Mrs. Clausen."

Her irritation was apparent in her tight smile, but she obeyed nonetheless. "I'm not a child, you know," she murmured.

He had been about to kiss her on the forehead, but drew back. A bad mistake, he thought. Don't be a fool and go over the line.

"I hope you'll be pleased," he said as he turned the framed sketch so that she could see the rendering of the orphanage that showed Regina's name on the carved sign.

Jane Clausen opened her eyes, and for long moments she studied the picture. Only a tear in the corner of her left eye hinted at the emotion she was feeling. "How very lovely," she said. "I can't think of a nicer tribute to Regina. Now when did you people put this over on me, naming the orphanage after her?"

"The administrators of the orphanage begged us to let it be named for Regina. It will be announced at the dedication of the new wing that I'll be attending next week. We were going to wait and show you this and the pictures from the ceremony at the same time, but my hunch was that it would give you a lift to see this one now."

"You mean you wanted me to see it before I die?" Jane Clausen said matter-of-factly.

"No, I don't mean that, Mrs. Clausen."

"Doug, don't look so guilt stricken. I am going to die. We both know that. And seeing this does give me great happiness." She smiled sadly. "You know what else is a comfort to me?"

He knew it was a rhetorical question. He held his breath, hoping that she would talk about his sensitivity, and his devotion to the trust.

"It's that the money Regina would have inherited is going to be used to help other people. In a way, it's as though she'll be living through the people whose lives are touched and bettered because of her."

"I can promise you, Mrs. Clausen, that every cent we spend in Regina's name will be carefully committed."

"I'm sure of that." She paused, then looked at Douglas Layton, standing tensely next to her. "Douglas, I'm afraid Hubert is getting quite absent-minded. I think that I want to see a different situation in place," she said.

Layton waited. This is what he had come to hear.

There was a soft tap at the door. Susan Chandler looked in. "Oh, Mrs. Clausen, I didn't know you had company. I'll stay in the waiting area while you two visit."

"Absolutely not. Come in, Susan. You remember Douglas Layton, don't you? You met last Monday in your office."

Susan thought of what Chris Ryan had told her about Layton. "Yes, I do remember," she said coolly. "How are you, Mr. Layton?"

"Very well, Doctor Chandler." She knows something, Layton thought. I'd better stick around. She wouldn't dare say anything about me while I'm here.

He smiled at Susan. "I owe you an apology," he said. "I bolted out of your office the other day as though I'd heard a fire alarm, but I had an elderly client coming in from Connecticut, and I'd confused the times on my calendar."

He's very smooth, Susan thought, as she took the chair he held out for her. She had hoped he would leave, but he pulled up another chair, signaling his intention to continue his visit.

"Douglas, I won't keep you," Jane Clausen told him. "I need to have a few words with Susan, then I'm afraid I'll have to rest."

"Oh, of course." He sprang up, his expression and manner solicitous.

A classy-looking guy in his late thirties, Susan thought, reflecting on the description Nat Small had given of the man he saw standing outside his shop on the day Abdul Parki was murdered. But then, it fits many dozens of other men. And just because he changed his story about a conversation with Regina Clausen doesn't mean that he murdered her, she thought, reproaching herself for jumping to conclusions.

There was another tap on the door, and a nurse put her head in the room. "Mrs. Clausen, the doctor will be here to see you in just a minute."

"Oh, dear. Susan, I'm afraid I've dragged you up here for nothing. Will you call me in the morning?"

"Of course."

"Before you go, you must see the surprise I told you Doug had for me." She pointed to the framed sketch. "This is an orphanage in Guatemala that is being dedicated next week to Regina."

Susan examined it closely. "How lovely," she said sincerely. "I understand there's a desperate need for facilities like this in many countries, and especially in Central America."

"That's exactly right," Layton assured her. "And the Clausen Family Trust is helping to build them."

As she got up to leave, Susan noticed a bright blue folder on the nightstand next to the bed. It appeared to be identical to the one she had found pieces of in the wastebasket in Carolyn Wells's home office. She walked over and picked it up. As she had expected, the front of the folder displayed the logo of Ocean Cruise Pictures. She looked at Airs. Clausen. "May I?"

"Absolutely. That was probably the last picture ever taken of Regina."

There was no mistaking that the woman in the picture was Jane Clausen's daughter. The eyes were the same, and they both had the same straight nose; even the widow's peak on the hairline was similar. Regina was pictured standing next to the Gabrielle's captain. The obligatory cruise photo, Susan thought, but it's a very good one. When she had done the research on Regina Clausen for her radio program, she had seen pictures of her in newspaper clippings, but none had been as flattering as this one.

"Regina was very attractive, Mrs. Clausen," she said sincerely.

"Yes, she was. From the date on the folder, I know that photograph was made two days before she disappeared," Jane Clausen said. "She looks very happy in it. Knowing that has been a comfort in some ways, a torment in others. I wonder if her happiness has to do with trusting the person responsible for her disappearance."

"Try not to think about it that way," Doug Layton suggested.

"I'm sorry I have to interrupt." The doctor was standing in the doorway. Clearly he expected them to leave.

Susan could not wait any longer for Layton to depart. "Mrs. Clausen," she said hurriedly, "do you remember if a passenger list from the cruise ship was among the things found in Regina's stateroom?"

"I'm sure I saw one in the envelope with other information about the cruise. Why, Susan?"

"Because if I may, I would very much like to borrow it for a few days. Could I pick it up tomorrow?"

"No, if it's important, you'd better get it now. I insisted that Vera take a few days off and visit her daughter, and she's planning to leave very early in the morning."

"I'd be happy to get it now, if you're sure you don't mind," Susan said.

"Not at all. Doctor Markey, I'm sorry to delay you," Jane Clausen said, her voice suddenly brisk. "Douglas, hand me my purse, please. It's in the drawer of the night table."

She took out her wallet and pulled a card from inside. After jotting a note on it, she handed it to Susan.

"I know Vera is there still, and I'll phone her to let her know you're coming, but you can take this note just in case; it has my address. We'll talk tomorrow," she said.

Douglas Layton left with Susan. Together they went down in the elevator and out to the street. "I'd be happy to go with you," he suggested. "Vera knows me very well."

"No, that's fine. Here's a cab. I'll grab it."

The traffic was typically heavy, and it was five o'clock before she reached the Beekman Place address. Knowing that she was going to have to rush back to her apartment to get ready for the evening, she tried unsuccessfully to persuade the cabbie to wait for her while she ran upstairs.

She was grateful that Jane Clausen had phoned the housekeeper. "These are all Regina's things," she explained, as she took Susan into the guest room. "The furniture is from her apartment. Mrs. Clausen sits in here by herself sometimes. It would make your heart break to see her."

It is a beautiful room, Susan thought. Elegant, but still comfortable and inviting. Rooms tell a lot about the people who furnish them.

Vera opened the top drawer of an antique desk and took out a legal-size manila envelope. "All the papers found in Regina's stateroom are here."

Inside were the kinds of memorabilia that Carolyn Wells had brought back from her cruise as well. In addition to the passenger list, there were a half-dozen copies of the daily shipboard news bulletins, with information about the upcoming ports of call, and a variety of postcards that seemed to be from those ports. Regina probably bought them as mementos of the places she had seen, Susan thought. Chances are she would have mailed them before reaching Hong Kong if she had intended to send them.

She put the passenger list in her shoulder bag, then decided to take a quick look at the postcards and bulletins. She flipped through the postcards, stopping when she noticed one from Bali that featured an outdoor restaurant. A table overlooking the ocean had been neatly circled in pen.

Did she dine there? Susan wondered. And if she did, why was it special? She skimmed through the newsletters until she found the one about Bali.

"I'm going to take this card and this bulletin," she told Vera. "I'm sure it will be all right with Mrs. Clausen. I'm seeing her tomorrow, and I'll tell her I have them."

It was twenty after five when she finally managed to hail a cab, and it was ten of six before she opened the door of her apartment. Forty minutes to get ready for the big date, she thought, and I haven't even decided what to wear.

89

Pamela Hastings sat in the waiting room of the intensive care unit at Lenox Hill Hospital, trying to comfort a sobbing Justin Wells. "I thought I'd lost her," he said, his voice breaking with emotion. "I thought I'd lost her."

"Carolyn's a fighter-she'll pull through," Pamela said reassuringly. "Justin, a Dr. Donald Richards phoned the hospital to inquire about Carolyn and about you. He left his number. Isn't he the psychiatrist you consulted for quite a while when you and Carolyn had problems earlier?"

"The psychiatrist I was supposed to consult," Wells said. "I only saw him once."

"His message was that he'd be glad to help in any way possible." She paused, worried how he would react to what she was going to say next. "Justin, may I call him? I think you need to talk to someone." She felt his body stiffen.

"Pam, you still think I did that to Carolyn, don't you?"

"No, I don't," she said firmly. "I'll say it to you as straight as I can. I believe that Carolyn is going to make it, but I also know we are not out of the woods yet. If- God forbid-she doesn't make it, you're going to need an awful lot of help. Please let me call him."

Justin nodded slowly. "Okay."

When she returned to the waiting room a few minutes later, Pamela was smiling. "He's on his way over, Justin," she said. "He sounds like a nice man. Please let him help you if he can."

90

"I think I have solved a perplexing problem, Jim," Alex Wright said cheerfully.

It was clear to Jim Curley that his boss was in good spirits. He looks terrific, he thought as he glanced in the rearview mirror, and better than that, he looks happy.

They were on the way to Downing Street to pick up Susan Chandler for the dinner at the main library, on Fifth Avenue. Alex had insisted on leaving early, just in case they got caught in heavy traffic. Instead, there were fewer cars than usual on Seventh Avenue, so they made excellent time. Must be Murphy's Law or something, Jim thought. "What kind of problem did you solve, Mr. Alex?"

"By inviting Dr. Chandler's father and stepmother to the dinner tonight, I was able to ask them to stop by the St. Regis and collect Dr. Chandler's sister. It would have been quite awkward for me to arrive with a lady on each arm."

"Oh, you could handle it, Mr. Alex."

"The question is not if I could handle it, Jim. The question is do I want to handle it? And the answer is no."

Meaning, Jim drought, that he wants to zero in on Susan, and not Dee. From what he had seen of the two women, he agreed with his boss. There was no question that Dee was a spectacular-looking lady, of course. He had seen that the other night when he had driven them. She seemed nice also. But there was something about her sister, Susan, that grabbed Jim. She seemed more natural, more like the kind of person you could invite into your home without apologizing because the place wasn't so fancy, he thought.

At five after six they were in front of the brown-stone where Susan lived. "Jim, how do you always manage to get a parking place?" Alex Wright asked.

"Clean living, Mr. Alex. You want me to turn on the radio?"

"No, I'm going upstairs."

"You're early."

"That's all right. I'll sit in the parlor and twiddle my thumbs."

. . . You're early," Susan said when she answered the lobby intercom, dismay apparent in her voice.

"I won't get in your way, I promise," Alex said. "I hate to wait in cars. Makes me feel like a taxi driver."

Susan laughed. "All right, come on up. You can watch the rest of the six o'clock news."

Of all the luck, she thought. Her hair was still wrapped in a towel. Her gown, a black tuxedo jacket with a long, narrow skirt, was hanging over the tub in the bathroom, an effort to steam out the last of the wrinkles. She was wearing the fuzzy white bathrobe that made her feel like an Easter bunny.

Alex laughed when she opened the door. "You look about ten years old," he told her. "Want to play doctor?"

She made a face at him. "Behave yourself and turn on the news."

She closed the bedroom door, sat at the vanity, and pulled out the hair dryer. I'd be out of luck if I couldn't do my own hair, she thought. Although it never looks as good as Dee's. "Dear God, I am late," she murmured as she turned the dryer onto the highest setting.

Fifteen minutes later, at exactly 6:28, she looked in the mirror. Her hair was fine, the extra makeup obscured the strain from lack of sleep she had seen earlier in her face, the wrinkles were just about all out of the skirt, so everything seemed to be in order. Yet somehow she didn't feel right. Had she been too worried, too rushed, or what? she asked herself as she picked up her evening bag.