You Belong to Me, Page 3

  But if this woman who called herself Karen had been given a similar ring only two years ago, did it mean that the person responsible for Regina’s death might still be preying on other women? Regina had disappeared in Hong Kong. Karen said she was supposed to get off her ship to go to Algiers.

  Jane Clausen stood, waited for the pain in her back to ease, then walked slowly from the study to the room that she and her housekeeper carefully referred to as the guest room.

  A year after the disappearance, she had given up Regina’s apartment, then had sold her own too-big house in Scarsdale. She had bought this five-room apartment on Beekman Place and furnished the second bedroom with Regina’s own furniture, filled the drawers and closets with her clothing, put her pictures and knickknacks around.

  Sometimes, when she was alone, Jane brought a cup of tea into the room, sat on the brocade love seat Regina had purchased at an auction, and let her mind remember and relive a happier time.

  Now she went to the dresser, opened the top drawer, and removed the leather box in which Regina had kept her jewelry.

  The turquoise ring was in a velvet-lined compartment. She picked it up and slipped it on her finger.

  She went to the telephone and phoned Douglas Layton. “Douglas,” she said quietly, “today at quarter of three you and I are going to be in Dr. Susan Chandler’s office. I assume you listened to the program?”

  “Yes, I did, Mrs. Clausen.”

  “I have got to talk to the woman who phoned in.”

  “I’d better call and tell Dr. Chandler we’re coming.”

  “That’s exactly what I don’t want you to do. I intend to be there and speak to that young woman myself.”

  Jane Clausen replaced the receiver. Ever since she had heard how little time she had left, she had contented herself with the knowledge that this terrible sense of loss soon would be over. But now she felt a blazing new need—she had to make sure that no other mother experienced the pain she had felt these past three years.

  7

  In the cab on the way back to her office, Susan Chandler mentally reviewed the appointments she had scheduled for the day. In less than an hour, at one, she was supposed to conduct a psychological evaluation of a seventh grader who was showing signs of moderate depression. She suspected that it went deeper than the typical preadolescent self-image problem. An hour later she was seeing a sixty-five-year-old woman who was about to retire and as a result was spending sleepless nights gripped with anxiety.

  And at three o’clock she hoped she would be meeting the woman who called herself Karen. She had sounded so frightened when she phoned, though, that Susan worried she might change her mind. What did she have to be afraid of? she wondered.

  Five minutes later, as Susan opened the door to her office, her secretary, Janet, greeted her with an approving smile. “Good program, Doctor. We’ve gotten a lot of calls about it. I can’t wait to see what this Karen is like.”

  “Nor can I,” Susan said, a pessimistic tone creeping into her voice. “Any important messages?”

  “Yes. Your sister, Dee, phoned from the airport. She said she was sorry she missed you yesterday. She wanted to apologize for exploding at you Saturday. She also wanted to know what you thought of Alexander Wright. She met him at the party after you left. She says he’s terribly attractive.” Janet handed her a slip of paper. “I wrote it down.”

  Susan thought of the man who had overheard her father asking her to call him Charles. Fortyish, about six feet, sandy hair, an engaging smile, she remembered. He had come over to her when her father turned away to greet a new arrival. “Don’t let it get you down. It was probably Binky’s idea,” he had said encouragingly. “Let’s get some champagne and go outside.”

  It had been one of those glorious early fall afternoons, and they had stood on the terrace, languidly sipping from fluted glasses. The manicured lawn and formal gardens provided an exquisite setting for the turreted mansion her father had built for Binky.

  Susan had asked Alex Wright how he knew her father.

  “I didn’t until today,” he had explained. “But I’ve known Binky for years.” Then he had asked her what she did and raised his eyebrows when she said she was a clinical psychologist.

  “I’m really not so completely out of touch,” he had explained hurriedly, “it’s just that I hear the title ‘clinical psychologist’ and think of a rather serious older person, not a young and extremely attractive woman, such as you, and the two things don’t go together.”

  She had been dressed in a dark green, wool crepe sheath accented with an apple green scarf, one of the outfits she had purchased recently to wear to her father’s must-attend events.

  “Most of my Sunday afternoons are spent in a bulky sweater and jeans,” she told him. “Is that a more comfortable picture?”

  Anxious to be away from the sight of her father gushing over Binky, and not anxious to run into her sister, Susan had left soon afterwards—though not before one of her friends whispered that Alex Wright was the son of the late Alexander Wright, the legendary philanthropist. “Wright Library; Wright Museum of Art; Wright Center for the Performing Arts. Big, big bucks!” she had whispered.

  Susan studied the message left by her sister. He is very attractive, she thought. Hmmm.

  Corey Marcus, her twelve-year-old patient, tested well. But as they talked, Susan was reminded that psychology involves the emotions more than the intellect. The boy’s parents had been divorced when he was two, but they had continued to live near each other, had stayed friendly, and for ten years he had gone comfortably from home to home. But now his mother had been offered a job in San Francisco, and the comfortable arrangement was suddenly threatened.

  Corey struggled to blink back tears as he said, “I know she wants to take the job, but if she does, it means I won’t see much of my dad.”

  Intellectually, he appreciated what this job opportunity meant to his mother’s career. Emotionally, he hoped she would turn down the job rather than separate him from his father.

  “What do you think she should do?” Susan asked.

  He thought for a moment. “I guess Mom really should take the job. It’s not fair for her to have to pass it up.”

  What a good kid, Susan thought. Now her job was to help him put a positive spin on the change the move would make in his life.

  Esther Foster, the sixty-five-year-old soon-to-be retiree who came in at two o’clock, looked drawn and pale. “Two weeks till the big party, translated as ‘clean out your desk, Essy.’ ” Her face crumbled. “I’ve given my life to this job, Dr. Chandler,” she said. “I recently ran into a man I could have married who now is very successful. He and his wife have a wonderful life together.”

  “Are you saying you’re sorry you didn’t marry him?” Susan asked quietly.

  “Yes, I am!”

  Susan looked steadily into Esther Foster’s eyes. After a moment a hint of a smile pulled at the corners of the woman’s mouth. “He was dull as dishwater then, and he hasn’t improved that much since, Dr. Chandler,” she admitted. “But at least I wouldn’t be alone.”

  “Let’s define the meaning of ‘alone,”’ Susan suggested.

  When Esther Foster left at quarter of three, Janet appeared with a container of chicken soup and a package of crackers.

  Less than a minute later, Janet informed her that Regina Clausen’s mother and her attorney, Douglas Layton, were in the reception area.

  “Put them in the conference room,” Susan directed. “I’ll see them there.”

  Jane Clausen looked very much the same as she had when Susan had glimpsed her in the office of the Westchester County District Attorney. Impeccably dressed in a black suit that must have cost the moon, gray hair perfectly coiffed, she had about her an air of reserve that, like her slender hands and ankles, suggested breeding.

  The lawyer, who had been so sharp on the telephone this morning, seemed almost apologetic. “Dr. Chandler, I hope we’re not intruding. Mrs. Clausen has
something important to show you, and she’d very much like having the opportunity to meet the woman who called in on your program this morning.”

  Susan suppressed a smile as she detected a telltale tinge of red beneath his deep tan. Layton’s dark blond hair was sun streaked, she noticed, and though he was soberly dressed in a dark business suit and tie, he still somehow managed to give the impression of an outdoor man.

  Sailing, Susan decided for no particular reason.

  She glanced at her watch. It was ten minutes of three, time to get directly to the point. Ignoring Layton, she looked straight at Regina Clausen’s mother. “Mrs. Clausen, I’m not at all sure that the woman who called the program earlier is going to show up. I am afraid that if she realizes you are here she may make a beeline for the door. I’m going to ask you to stay in this room with the door closed; let me see her in my office, and after I’ve had a chance to find out what she may know, I’ll ask her to consider speaking with you. But you understand that if she does not agree, I can’t allow you to infringe on her privacy.”

  Jane Clausen opened her purse, reached inside, and pulled out a turquoise band. “My daughter had this ring in her stateroom on the Gabrielle. I found it when her possessions were returned to me. Please show it to Karen. If it’s like the one she has, she simply must talk to me, although please emphasize that I have no wish to know her true identity, only every detail of the man she began to become involved with.”

  She handed the ring to Susan.

  “Look at the inscription,” Layton said.

  Susan peered at the tiny lettering, squinting. Then she walked over to the window and held the ring up to the light, turning it until she could read the words. She gasped and turned back to the woman who stood waiting. “Please sit down, Mrs. Clausen. My secretary will bring you tea or coffee. And just pray that Karen shows up.”

  “I’m afraid I can’t stay,” Layton said hurriedly. “Mrs. Clausen, I’m so sorry, but I was unable to cancel my appointment.”

  “I do understand, Douglas.” There was a slight but distinct edge in the woman’s voice. “The car is waiting for me downstairs. I’ll be fine.”

  His face brightened. “In that case, I’ll take my leave.” He nodded to Susan. “Dr. Chandler.”

  Susan watched with increasing frustration as the hands of the clock crawled to five after three, then ten after three. Quarter past became three-thirty, then quarter of four. She went back to the conference room. Jane Clausen’s face was ashen. She’s in physical pain, Susan realized.

  “I could use that tea now, if the offer is still open, Dr. Chandler,” Mrs. Clausen said. Only a faint tremor in her voice revealed her acute disappointment.

  8

  At four o’clock, Carolyn Wells was walking down Eighty-first Street toward the post office, a manila envelope addressed to Susan Chandler under her arm. Irresolution and doubt had been replaced with the sense of an absolute need to get rid of the ring and the picture of the man who had called himself Owen Adams. Any temptation to keep the appointment with Susan Chandler, however, had disappeared when her husband, Justin, phoned at one-thirty.

  “Honey, the craziest thing,” he had said, a joking tone in his voice. “Barbara, the receptionist, had the radio on this morning, listening to some call-in advice program; she said it was called Ask Dr. Susan, or something like that. Anyway, she said some woman named Karen was one of the callers and she sounded a lot like you and talked about meeting a guy on a cruise two years ago. Anything you haven’t told me?”

  The joking tone disappeared. “Carolyn, I want an answer. Anything I should know about that cruise?”

  Carolyn had felt her palms become clammy. She could hear a question in his voice, a suspicion, the sound that was the sign of mounting anger. She laughed it off, assuring him that she didn’t have time to listen to the radio in the middle of the day. But given Justin’s past history of almost obsessive jealousy, she worried that she hadn’t heard the last of this. Now all she wanted to do was to get this ring and this photo out of her life for good.

  The traffic was unusually heavy, even for that time of day. The hour between four and five is the most miserable time to try to get a cab, she thought, as she observed frustrated would-be passengers trying to flag down taxis, all of which seemed to be displaying off-duty signs.

  At Park Avenue, even though the light turned green, she was forced to wait at the front of an impatient throng of pedestrians as cars and vans continued to spin around the corner. Pedestrians have the right-of-way, she thought. Sure.

  A delivery van was turning, its brakes screeching. Instinctively she tried to step back, away from the curb. She could not retreat. Someone was standing directly behind her, blocking her way. Suddenly she felt a hand grab the envelope from under her arm, just as another hand shoved against the small of her back.

  Carolyn teetered on the edge of the sidewalk. Half turning, she glimpsed a familiar face and managed to whisper no as she tumbled forward and under the wheels of the van.

  9

  He had waited for her outside the building in which Susan Chandler had her office. As the minutes ticked by and she still failed to appear, his emotions ran the gamut from relief to irritation—relief that she wasn’t going to show up, and anger that he had wasted so much time and now would have to track her down.

  Fortunately, he had remembered her name and knew where she lived, so when Carolyn Wells didn’t show up at Susan Chandler’s office, he had phoned her home and then hung up when she answered. The instinct that had preserved him all these years had warned that even though she failed to keep the appointment today, she was still dangerous.

  He had gone to the Metropolitan Museum of Art and sat on the steps with the small crowd of students and tourists who were hanging around even though it was closed. From there, he had a clear view of her apartment building.

  At four o’clock his patience had been rewarded. The doorman had held open the ornate door, and she had emerged, carrying a small manila envelope under her arm.

  It was a bonus that the weather was so pleasant and that the streets were so filled with pedestrians. He had been able to walk closely behind her and even make out a few letters of the block printing on the envelope: DR. SU . . .

  He had guessed that the envelope contained the ring and picture she had talked about when she called in to the program. He knew he had to stop her before she reached the post office. His opportunity came at the corner of Park and Eighty-first, when frustrated motorists declined to yield the right-of-way to the pedestrians.

  Carolyn had half turned when he shoved her, and their eyes had met. She had known him as Owen Adams, a British businessman. On that trip he had sported a mustache and an auburn wig, and worn glasses and colored contact lenses. Even so, he was sure he saw a flicker of recognition in her eyes just before she fell.

  With satisfaction he remembered the screams and shrieks as observers watched her body disappear under the wheels of the van. It had been easy then just to slip away through the crowd, the envelope she had been carrying now hidden under his jacket.

  Even though he was anxious to see what she had put in it, he had waited until he was in the safety of his office with the doors locked before he ripped the envelope open.

  The ring and picture were enclosed in a plastic bag. There was no letter or note with them. He studied the picture carefully, remembering exactly where it had been taken—aboard ship, in the Grand Salon, at the captain’s cocktail party for the newcomers who had joined the cruise in Haifa. Of course he had avoided the ritual of having his picture taken with the captain, but clearly he had been careless. In circling his prey, he had made the mistake of getting too close to Carolyn and ended up within camera range. He remembered that he had sensed immediately that aura of sadness about her, something he always required. Hers was so strong that he knew from the outset she was to be the next one.

  He looked carefully at the photograph. Even though he was in profile, the mustache obvious, his hair rus
set, someone studying that picture with a trained eye might recognize him.

  His posture was rigidly straight; his habit of hooking the thumb of his right hand in his pocket was also a potential giveaway; his stance, right foot a half step ahead of the left and bearing most of his weight because of an old injury, likewise would be noticeable to anyone looking for it.

  He tossed the picture into the shredder and with grim satisfaction watched it transformed into unrecognizable strips. The ring, he slipped on his pinkie finger. He admired it, looked at it closer, then frowned and reached for a handkerchief with which to polish it.

  Another woman would very soon have the privilege of wearing this same ring, he told himself.

  He smiled briefly as he thought of his next, his final victim.

  10

  It was four-fifty when Justin Wells returned to his office and tried to get back to work. In a characteristic gesture, he ran his hand through his dark hair, then he dropped his pen, shoved back his chair, and stood up. A big man, he nonetheless moved from the drafting table with easy, swift grace, a quality that twenty-five years ago had made him an outstanding college football player.

  He couldn’t do it. He’d been commissioned to design the renovation of a skyscraper lobby, and he could think of nothing. Of course, today he was having trouble concentrating on anything at all.

  The cowardly lion. That was the way he characterized himself. Afraid. Always afraid. Every new job began with the agonizing certainty that this was the one he would flub. Twenty-five years ago he had felt that way before every football game. Now here he was, a partner in the architectural firm of Benner, Pierce and Wells, and he was still plagued by the same self-doubts.