The Best of Sisters in Crime (23 page)

Mystery teams
sat together at dinner, passing notes, engaging in intense conversations with
occasional loud outbursts of disagreement. But when the solutions were turned
in at eight P.M., there was a general air of relaxation.

Laurel had not
even sat with her team. Admittedly a dereliction of duty on her part, but more
serious matters dominated. Instead, she settled early at the table closest to
the stage, her police chief friend beside her. Their chairs were only a few
feet from the downstage-left stairs. As the house-lights dimmed, she sat
forward, chin in hand, to observe.

As the play
unfolded, she was impressed with the skill of the young acting troupe. Kelly
was superb as the abused wife on trial for the murder of her husband, the
handsome, strapping Bill. Slender, blond Jonathan was an effective hired man,
who served as the object of the husband’s jealousy. The play began in the
courtroom where the widow was on trial for her life for the murder of her
husband. She claimed self-defense. Plump Walter, as the judge, looked
unaccustomedly stern in his black robe. The prosecutor, played by the
dark-visaged Carl, was determined to see her executed for the crime. As Carl badgered
her upon the witness stand, she broke down in tears, screaming, “You can’t know
what it was like that night!” The stage went dark. An instant passed and the
spots focused downstage on the partial set containing the old bed and the
nightstand. Kelly raised up in the bed. She was dressed in the cotton gown she
had worn the night of the shooting.

Laurel slipped
to her feet and moved toward the down-stage-left steps. The police chief, with
footsteps as light as a cat’s, followed close behind.

Onstage, the
door to the bedroom burst open. The husband, played so well by that handsome
young man, Bill Morgan, lunged toward the bed. His face aflame with jealousy
and anger, he accused her of infidelity. Denying it, Kelly rolled off the bed,
trying to escape, but her husband bounded forward. Grabbing Kelly, Bill flung
her toward the bed and began to pull his belt from its loops. With a desperate
cry, she turned toward the nightstand and yanked at the drawer. Pulling out the
gun, she whirled toward Bill—and Laurel was there.

Firmly, Laurel
wrested the gun from Kelly’s hand. She stepped back.

“Lights.” (It
had only taken a moment that afternoon to convince Buddy, a charming young
hotel man, that a new wrinkle had been added to the evening’s entertainment. So
many people, it was sad to say, were so credulous. Really, it was no wonder
criminals found such easy pickings.)

The stage was
bathed in sharp white light.

“What the hell’s
going on?” Bill demanded.

Laurel held the
gun with an extremely competent air. (After all, she had been second highest
overall for women at the National Skeet Shooting Association World
Championships in San Antonio in 1978.)

“So boring,”
Laurel trilled, “when everything always goes on schedule. Let’s be innovative,
listen to the inner promptings of our psyches. What would happen at this moment
if this gun were turned upon another? Let us see.” She smiled kindly at Bill
Morgan, the handsome young man so accustomed to female adoration. “Not you, my
dear. You’ve had your close call for now. But what about Carl? Does he hate you
for taking Kelly away?” She swung the pistol toward the dark-visaged actor.

He squinted at
her beneath the bright lights. “Lady, you
are
a nut.” He folded his arms across his chest and shook his head in
disgust.

The barrel poked
toward him for a moment.

“No,” Laurel
said crisply, “not Carl.”

The barrel
swiveled up to aim at the black-clad judge. “Walter.”

“Jesus, lady,
get the hell offstage!”

But he made no
move to duck or move away. Laurel smiled benignly. “It is important to be open
to life. You passed a romantic moment with Kelly, did you not? But you see all
liaisons as impermanent. So I think I shan’t shoot at you.”

She sighed and
turned the gun toward the slender young man. Jonathan brushed back a wisp of
blond hair. “This isn’t funny, even if you think it is,” he said pettishly. “What
if we don’t get paid for tonight?”

“Ah, the Inn
will not be unhappy. Mystery lovers prefer excitement in the raw. They wish to
experience life upon the edge. And we are now so close to true drama.”

She swung around
and leveled the pistol, aiming directly at Kelly’s heart.

“I believe you
will be the victim tonight, my dear. One, two . . .”

Kelly lifted her
hands, stumbled backward, turned and began to run. “Stop her, somebody. Stop
her before she kills me!”

As Kelly fled
down the steps into the hall, Laurel called after her. “My dear, how
interesting that you should be afraid. Because all the players know this gun is
loaded with blanks.”

The police
chief, nodding approval at Laurel, hurried after the escaping actress.

Bill’s eyes
widened like a man who sees an unimaginable horror. “The gun. Blanks. You mean .
. .”

Laurel nodded. “I’m
afraid so, my dear. She put in real bullets. She would have killed you, of
course—and claimed it was an accident, that some malicious person must have
made the substitution. It would have been so difficult to prove otherwise. But,
fortunately, I was abroad in the still of the night. And the dear police chief
and I, such a cooperative man, removed the bullets, just in case, you know,
that I didn’t move swiftly enough tonight. Though everyone who knows me knows
that I am always swift. We have the bullets she put in place of the blanks.
They are Exhibits A, B, and C, I believe. The police are
so
efficient.”

“Real bullets?”
Bill repeated thinly. “My God, why?”

“Oh, my dear
young man. You are so young. It would be well to understand that a woman who
goes from man to man must do so at her own volition. A woman such as Kelly
could never bear to be cast aside.” She beamed at the handsome young man. “There
is much to be said for constancy, you know.” (She forbore to mention her own
marital record of five husbands and—but that would be another story entirely.) “In
any event, you should be quite safe now. Such a
public
demonstration of evil intent.”

Back to table of
contents

Ever since the
publication of
Where Are the Children?
Mary Higgins Clark has been a premier purveyor of psychological suspense. Three
of her novels have been made into feature films and six into films for
television. Past president of Mystery Writers of America, winner of the French
Grand Prize for Literature, Mary’s bestselling novels, including
Loves Music, Loves to Dance; Let Me Call You Sweetheart; Moonlight Becomes Her;
Pretend You Don’t See Her;
and the forthcoming
You
Belong to Me,
are avidly devoured by readers all
over the world—and for good reason. Hers is the supreme storyteller’s gift, for
which her legions of fans are grateful.

In “Voices in the
Coalbin,” a young husband tries to still the ominous chorus that haunts his
wife.

It was dark when they
arrived. Mike steered the
car off the dirt road
down the long driveway and stopped in front of the cottage. The real estate
agent had promised to have the heat turned up and the lights on. She obviously
didn’t believe in wasting electricity.

An
insect-repellent bulb over the door emitted a bleak yellowish beam that
trembled in the steady drizzle. The small-paned windows were barely outlined by
a faint flicker of light that seeped through a partially open blind.

Mike stretched.
Fourteen hours a day of driving for the past three days had cramped his long,
muscular body. He brushed back his dark brown hair from his forehead wishing he’d
taken time to get a haircut before they left New York. Laurie teased him when
his hair started to grow. “You look like a thirty-year-old Roman Emperor,
Curlytop,” she would comment. “All you need is a toga and a laurel wreath to
complete the effect.”

She had fallen
asleep about an hour ago. Her head was resting on his lap. He glanced down at
her, hating to wake her up. Even though he could barely make out her profile,
he knew that in sleep the tense lines vanished from around her mouth and the
panic-stricken expression disappeared from her face.

Four months ago
the recurring nightmare had begun, the nightmare that made her shriek, “
No,
I won’t go with you. I won’t sing with you.”

He’d shake her
awake. “It’s all right, sweetheart. It’s all right.”

Her screams
would fade into terrified sobs. “I don’t know who they are but they want me,
Mike. I can’t see their faces but they’re all huddled together beckoning to me.”

He had taken her
to a psychiatrist, who put her on medication and began intensive therapy. But
the nightmares continued, unabated. They had turned a gifted twenty-four-year-old
singer who had just completed a run as a soloist in her first Broadway musical
to a trembling wraith who could not be alone after dark.

The psychiatrist
had suggested a vacation. Mike told him about the summers he’d spent at his
grandmother’s house on Oshbee Lake forty miles from Milwaukee. “My grandmother
died last September,” he’d explained. “The house is up for sale. Laurie’s never
been there and she loves the water.”

The doctor had
approved. “But be careful of her,” he warned. “She’s severely depressed. I’m
sure these nightmares are a reaction to her childhood experiences, but they’re
overwhelming her.”

Laurie had
eagerly endorsed the chance to go away. Mike was a junior partner in his father’s
law firm. “Anything that will help Laurie,” his father told him. “Take whatever
time you need.”

I remember
brightness here, Mike thought as he studied the shadow-filled cottage with
increasing dismay. I remember the feel of the water when I dove in, the warmth
of the sun on my face, the way the breeze filled the sails and the boat skimmed
across the lake.

It was the end
of June but it might have been early March. According to the radio, the cold
spell had been gripping Wisconsin for three days. There’d better be enough coal
to get the furnace going, Mike thought, or else that real estate agent will
lose the listing.

He had to wake
up Laurie. It would be worse to leave her alone in the car, even for a minute. “We’re
here, love,” he said, his voice falsely cheerful.

Laurie stirred.
He felt her stiffen, then relax as he tightened his arms around her. “It’s so
dark,” she whispered.

“We’ll get
inside and turn some lights on.”

He remembered
how the lock had always been tricky. You had to pull the door to you before the
key could fit into the cylinder. There was a night-light plugged into an outlet
in the small foyer. The house was not warm but neither was it the bone-chilling
cold he had feared.

Quickly Mike
switched on the hall light. The wallpaper with its climbing ivy pattern seemed
faded and soiled. The house had been rented for the five summers his
grandmother was in the nursing home. Mike remembered how clean and warm and
welcoming it had been when she was living here.

Laurie’s silence
was ominous. His arm around her, he brought her into the living room. The
overstuffed velour furniture that used to welcome his body when he settled in
with a book was still in place but, like the wallpaper, seemed soiled and
shabby.

Mike’s forehead
furrowed into a troubled frown. “Honey, I’m sorry. Coming here was a lousy
idea. Do you want to go to a motel? We passed a couple that looked pretty
decent.”

Laurie smiled up
at him. “Mike, I want to stay here. I want you to share with me all those
wonderful summers you spent in this place. I want to pretend your grandmother
was mine. Then maybe I’ll get over whatever is happening to me.”

Laurie’s
grandmother had raised her. A fear-ridden neurotic, she had tried to instill in
Laurie fear of the dark, fear of strangers, fear of planes and cars, fear of
animals. When Laurie and Mike met two years ago, she’d shocked and amused him
by reciting some of the litany of hair-raising stories that her grandmother had
fed her on a daily basis. “How did you turn out so normal, so much fun?” Mike
used to ask her.

“I was damned if
I’d let her turn me into a certified nut.” But the last four months had proved
that Laurie had not escaped after all, that there was psychological damage that
needed repairing.

Now Mike smiled
down at her, loving the vivid sea-green eyes, the thick dark lashes that threw
shadows on her porcelain skin, the way tendrils of chestnut hair framed her
oval face. “You’re so darn pretty,” he said, “and sure I’ll tell you all about
Grandma. You only knew her when she was an invalid. I’ll tell you about fishing
with her in a storm, about jogging around the lake and her yelling for me to
keep up the pace, about finally managing to outswim her when she was sixty.”