Chapter One
Tuesday, March 20
He turned onto the boardwalk and felt the full impact of
the stinging blast from the ocean. Observing the shifting
clouds, he decided it wouldn't be surprising if they had a
snow flurry later on, even though tomorrow was the first
day of spring. It had been a long winter, and everyone
said how much they were looking forward to the warm
weather ahead. He wasn't.
He enjoyed Spring Lake best once late autumn set in. By
then the summer people had closed their houses, not
appearing even for weekends.
He was chagrined, though, that with each passing year more
and more people were selling their winter homes and
settling here permanently. They had decided it was worth
the seventy-mile commute into New York so that they could
begin and end the day in this quietly beautiful New Jersey
seaside community.
Spring Lake, with its Victorian houses that appeared
unchanged from the way they had been in the 1890s, was
worth the inconvenience of the trip, they explained.
Spring Lake, with the fresh, bracing scent of the ocean
always present, revived the soul, they agreed.
Spring Lake, with its two-mile boardwalk, where one could
revel in the silvery magnificence of the Atlantic, was a
treasure, they pointed out.
All of these people shared so much — the summer visitors,
the permanent dwellers — but none of them shared his
secrets. He could stroll down Hayes Avenue and visualize
Madeline Shapley as she had been in late afternoon on
September 7, 1891, seated on the wicker sofa on the
wraparound porch of her home, her wide-brimmed bonnet
beside her. She had been nineteen years old then, brown-
eyed, with dark brown hair, sedately beautiful in her
starched white linen dress.
Only he knew why she had had to die an hour later.
St. Hilda Avenue, shaded with heavy oaks that had been
mere saplings on August 5, 1893, when eighteen-year-old
Letitia Gregg had failed to return home, brought other
visions. She had been so frightened. Unlike Madeline, who
had fought for her life, Letitia had begged for mercy.
The last one of the trio had been Ellen Swain, small and
quiet, but far too inquisitive, far too anxious to
document the last hours of Letitia's life.
And because of her curiosity, on March 31, 1896, she had
followed her friend to the grave.
He knew every detail, every nuance of what had happened to
her and to the others.
He had found the diary during one of those cold, rainy
spells that sometimes occur in summer. Bored, he'd
wandered into the old carriage house, which served as a
garage.
He climbed the rickety steps to the stuffy, dusty loft,
and for lack of something better to do, began rummaging
through the boxes he found there.
The first one was filled with utterly useless odds and
ends: rusty old lamps; faded, outdated clothing; pots and
pans and a scrub board; chipped vanity sets, the glass on
the mirrors cracked or blurred. They all were the sorts of
items one shoves out of sight with the intention of fixing
or giving away, and then forgets altogether.
Another box held thick albums, the pages crumbling, filled
with pictures of stiffly posed, stern-faced people
refusing to share their emotions with the camera.
A third contained books, dusty, swollen from humidity, the
type faded. He'd always been a reader, but even though
only fourteen at the time, he could glance through these
titles and dismiss them. No hidden masterpieces in the
lot.
A dozen more boxes proved to be filled with equally
worthless junk.
In the process of throwing everything back into the boxes,
he came across a rotted leather binder that had been
hidden in what looked like another photo album. He opened
it and found it stuffed with pages, every one of them
covered with writing.
The first entry was dated, September 7, 1891. It began
with the words "Madeline is dead by my hand."
He had taken the diary and told no one about it. Over the
years, he'd read from it almost daily, until it became an
integral part of his own memory. Along the way, he
realized he had become one with the author, sharing his
sense of supremacy over his victims, chuckling at his
playacting as he grieved with the grieving.
What began as a fascination gradually grew to an absolute
obsession, a need to relive the diary writer's journey of
death on his own. Vicarious sharing was no longer enough.
Four and a half years ago he had taken the first life.
It was twenty-one-year-old Martha's fate that she had been
present at the annual end-of-summer party her grandparents
gave. The Lawrences were a prominent, long-established
Spring Lake family. He was at the festive gathering and
met her there. The next day, September 7th, she left for
an early morning jog on the boardwalk. She never returned
home.
Now, over four years later, the investigation into her
disappearance was still ongoing. At a recent gathering,
the prosecutor of Monmouth County had vowed there would be
no diminution in the effort to learn the truth about what
had happened to Martha Lawrence. Listening to the empty
vows, he chuckled at the thought.
How he enjoyed participating in the somber discussions
about Martha that came up from time to time over the
dinner table.
I could tell you all about it, every detail, he said to
himself, and I could tell you about Carla Harper too. Two
years ago he had been strolling past the Warren Hotel and
noticed her coming down the steps. Like Madeline, as
described in the diary, she had been wearing a white
dress, although hers was barely a slip, sleeveless,
clinging, revealing every inch of her slender young body.
He began following her.
When she disappeared three days later, everyone believed
Carla had been accosted on the trip home to Philadelphia.
Not even the prosecutor, so determined to solve the
mystery of Martha's disappearance, suspected that Carla
had never left Spring Lake.
Relishing the thought of his omniscience, he had
lightheartedly joined the late afternoon strollers on the
boardwalk and exchanged pleasantries with several good
friends he met along the way, agreeing that winter was
insisting on giving them one more blast on its way out.
But even as he bantered with them, he could feel the need
stirring within him, the need to complete his trio of
present-day victims. The final anniversary was coming up,
and he had yet to choose her.
The word in town was that Emily Graham, the purchaser of
the Shapley house, as it was still known, was a descendant
of the original owners.
He had looked her up on the Internet. Thirty-two years
old, divorced, a criminal defense attorney. She had come
into money after she was given stock by the grateful owner
of a fledgling wireless company whom she'd successfully
defended pro bono. When the stock went public and she was
able to sell it, she made a fortune.
He learned that Graham had been stalked by the son of a
murder victim after she won an acquittal for the accused
killer. The son, protesting his innocence, was now in a
psychiatric facility. Interesting.
More interesting still, Emily bore a striking resemblance
to the picture he'd seen of her great-great-grandaunt,
Madeline Shapley. She had the same wide brown eyes and
long, full eyelashes. The same midnight-brown hair with
hints of auburn. The same lovely mouth. The same tall,
slender body.
There were differences, of course. Madeline had been
innocent, trusting, unworldly, a romantic. Emily Graham
was obviously a sophisticated and smart woman. She would
be more of a challenge than the others, but then again,
that made her so much more interesting. Maybe she was the
one destined to complete his special trio?
There was an orderliness, a rightness to the prospect that
sent a shiver of pleasure through him.
Copyright © 2001 by Mary Higgins Clark
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