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Pocket Books
July 2006
Featuring: Neeve Kearny
318 pages
ISBN: 1416524681
Paperback (reprint)
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Chapter One
It took three hours to get back into the city. The driving
became more treacherous and he tried to keep his distance
from other cars. He didn't need a fender bender. Months
from now no one would have any reason to know that he'd
been out of the city today.
It worked according to plan. He stopped for a split second
on Ninth Avenue and got rid of the plastic bag.
At eight o'clock he was delivering the car back to the gas
station on Tenth Avenue that rented old cars as a
sideline. Cash only. He knew they didn't keep records.
At ten o'clock, freshly showered and changed, he was in
his place, gulping straight bourbon and trying to shake
the sudden chilling attack of nerves. His mind went over
every instant of the time that had elapsed since he'd
stood in Ethel's apartment yesterday and listened to her
sarcasm, her ridicule, her threats.
Then she'd known. The antique dagger from her desk in his
hand. Her face filled with fear and she'd started to back
away.
The exhilaration of slashing that throat, of watching her
stumble backward through the archway to the kitchen and
collapse onto the ceramic-tile floor.
He still was amazed at how calm he'd been. He'd bolted the
door so that by some crazy trick of fate the
superintendent or a friend with a key couldn't walk in.
Everyone knew how eccentric Ethel could be. If someone
with a key found that the door was bolted, they'd assume
she didn't want to be bothered answering.
Then he had stripped his clothes off down to his underwear
and put on his gloves. Ethel had been planning to go away
to write a book. If he could get her out of here, people
would think she'd left on her own. She wouldn't be missed
for weeks, even months.
Now, gulping a mouthful of bourbon, he thought about how
he had selected clothes from her closet, changing her from
the blood-soaked caftan, pulling her pantyhose on,
slipping her arms into the blouse and the jacket,
buttoning the skirt, taking off her jewelry, forcing her
feet into pumps. He winced as he remembered the way he'd
held her up so that blood spurted over the blouse and the
suit. But it was necessary. When she was found, if she was
found, they had to think she'd died in that outfit.
He had remembered to cut out the labels that would have
meant immediate identification. He had found the long
plastic bag in the closet, probably returned by a cleaner
on an evening gown. He had forced her into it, then
cleaned the bloodstains that had spattered on the Oriental
throw rug, washed the kitchen tile with Clorox, packed the
suitcases with clothes and accessories, all the while
working frantically against time....
He refilled the glass to the brim with bourbon,
remembering when the phone had rung. The answering machine
had come on and the sound of Ethel's rapid speech
pattern. "Leave a message. I'll get back when and if I
feel like it." It had made his nerves scream. The caller
broke the connection and he'd turned off the machine. He
didn't want a record of people calling, and perhaps
remembering broken appointments later.
Ethel had the ground-floor apartment of a four-story
brownstone. Her private entrance was to the left of the
stoop that led to the main entry. In effect her door was
shielded from the view of anyone walking along the street.
The only period of vulnerability was the dozen steps from
her door to the curb.
In the apartment, he'd felt relatively safe. The hardest
part had come when, after he hid Ethel's tightly wrapped
body and luggage under her bed, he opened the front door.
The air had been raw and damp, the snow obviously about to
begin falling. The wind had cut a sharp path into the
apartment. He'd closed the door immediately. It was only a
few minutes past six. The streets were busy with people
coming home from work. He'd waited nearly two hours more,
then slipped out, double-locked the door and gone to the
cheap car rental. He'd driven back to Ethel's apartment.
Luck was with him. He was able to park almost directly in
front of the brownstone. It was dark and the street was
deserted.
In two trips he had the luggage in the trunk. The third
trip was the worst. He'd pulled his coat collar up, put on
an old cap he'd found on the floor of the rented car and
carried the plastic bag with Ethel's body out of the
apartment. The moment when he slammed the trunk down had
brought the first sense that he'd surely make it to
safety.
It had been hell to go back into the apartment, to make
certain that there was no trace of blood, no sign that
he'd been there. Every nerve shrieked at him to get to the
state park, to dump the body, but he knew that was crazy.
The police might notice someone trying to get into the
park at night. Instead he left the car on the street six
blocks away, followed his normal routine and at 5 A.M. set
out with the very early commuters....
It was all right now, he told himself. He was safe!
It was just as he was draining the last warming sip of
bourbon that he realized the one ghastly mistake he had
made, and knew exactly who would almost inevitably detect
it.
Neeve Kearny.
Copyright © 1989 by Mary Higgins Clark