… May 30, 1960.
That was the day after Sinclair Baskin died. Mary had never learned what happened on the evening of May 30, 1960. Only two people knew. Only two people had borne witness to the event that had taken place on May 30, 1960. One had recently burned to death. The other was about to commit one last murder.
May 30, 1960.
When Judy had first realized that David was still alive, she snapped into action. His strange survival was her last chance at redemption, her last chance to save Laura from the clutches of the past. James, on the other hand, had seen David’s survival as the path to his family’s destruction. He knew that Judy was going to tell Laura and Mary everything. He knew that she was going to reveal secrets that she had promised to take with her to the grave. So James did the only thing he could: He helped Judy keep her promise.
He escorted her to the grave.
He set the house on fire with her and all her damn diaries in it. The secret of the past had burned into nothing but worthless smoke and ashes. There had however been a serious miscalculation in Judy’s death: Laura got caught in the blaze. But that was not his fault. Mary started it. She should have never slept with Sinclair. And Judy was at fault too. She should have kept her mouth shut. Lucky for both of them that the mystery man had saved Laura. James now had a pretty good idea who that mystery man was.
It was a pity that he had to die.
James drove through the Fenway and turned onto Storrow Drive. David Baskin and the Boston Garden were only five minutes away.
Gloria moved up the front porch and into the house. The three women stared at each other, each noticing the horrifying pallor of the other two and wondering if they too looked like they were wearing death masks.
Laura spoke first. ‘What happened on May 30?’
Gloria wanted to tell her sister and yet she wanted to put it off for even a few more moments. ‘The diary will explain everything,’ she said, ‘but you better read Mr Corsel’s note first. He said it was urgent.’
Laura could feel beads of sweat on her forehead despite the cold. The envelope was plain and white, the kind you could buy in any stationery or card store. She took it from Gloria’s hand and ripped the seal. She withdrew a small note card, also on unmarked white paper. Richard Corsel had a marvelous economy of words but Laura understood why. The less said, the better: Please destroy this note as soon as you have read it. The name of the person who now controls the missing money is Mark Seidman.
Her legs almost gave way.
Gloria and Mary moved in. They led Laura to the couch in the den. All three sat down.
‘What does it say?’ Gloria asked.
Laura’s head swirled but somewhere in the gyrations she saw a faint light. At first she swore it was just her imagination, a case of desire turning a hope into a reality. It was all so crazy. It was a mirage, it had to be. And yet, the more it ran through her mind the more she understood everything: why T.C. had lied to her, why David had called the bank, why she had felt so strange around Mark Seidman, why he had been afraid to go near her, why his jumpshot was so familiar, why T.C. had helped him sneak out during the cocktail party when he had one of his…
‘It’s okay. I got you.’
A muffled cry.
‘Hang in there, old buddy. Just lean on me. I’ll have you home soon.’
‘I didn’t want to see her, T.C. I didn’t want to go near her.’
Tears ran down Laura’s face. Her mind tried to accept that she was finally face to face with the truth. ‘He’s still alive.’
‘Who?’ Gloria asked. ‘What are you talking about?’
She held up the piece of paper. ‘This proves it. Mark Seidman is really David.’
‘What?’ Mary shouted.
The pieces began to come together in her mind even as she spoke. ‘David never drowned. He never committed suicide. He just wanted us all to think he was dead. He wanted you to think he was out of the way and he wanted to protect me from the truth. It all makes sense now. And T.C. was in on it.’
‘But what about his ring showing up under your pillow?’ Gloria asked.
‘That had to be T.C.’s doing. He was trying to scare me off. He was afraid I would learn the truth.’
Laura ran for the phone.
‘What are you doing?’ Mary asked.
‘I’m calling Clip Arnstein. I want to find out where Mark Seidman lives.’
‘No!’ Mary screamed. ‘Don’t you see? This doesn’t change anything. You can’t be with him. David is still your brother.’
Laura spun back toward her mother as if the words she had spoken had wrapped themselves around her throat and pulled. ‘But -?’
It was Gloria who raised her hand to silence her. Her tear-streaked face mourned her own loss, but Gloria now realized that there was hope for Laura.
‘No, he’s not,’ she said.
Mary looked at her. ‘What are you talking about?’ ‘David is not your brother,’ Gloria repeated, handing Laura the diary. ‘May 30th. Read May 30th.’
Only a few blocks to go. Nothing could save David now.
James felt his sweat stick his shirt to his body. He hated perspiration. He kept extra dress shirts in his office so that he could always change into something fresh. But he would be able to change soon enough, as soon as he took care of this problem.
He was no professional killer, that was for sure, but he had managed to leave no clues behind and provide himself with good alibis. Take Judy’s murder, for example. If anybody wanted to know where James had been at the time of the fire, Dr Eric Clarich would gladly confirm that James was five hours away in Boston. Dr Clarich would testify that he had called Boston Memorial Hospital half an hour after the fire had been set and reached James.
Conclusion: James could not possibly be involved. No sense in digging any deeper.
How had James pulled that one off? If he had been up at Colgate committing a murder, how could he have miraculously returned to Boston in time for the expected emergency call? Simple. He didn’t. He merely set his office extension to transfer automatically all of his calls to a pay phone not five minutes from St Catherine’s Hospital in Hamilton, New York. Brilliant, no? Then all he had to do was make his way to the airport, wait a few hours, and show up at the hospital all harried as if he just rushed all the way from Boston.
That part had gone very smoothly.
His real moment of fear came when he finally did arrive at the hospital and saw Mary was already there. Panic washed through him. There was only one way she could have gotten from Boston to Hamilton so fast. She had to have been on her way up to Colgate to talk to Judy. Did Mary reach her in time? Did Judy have a chance to tell her anything before she died? Luckily, the answer was no. One look at Mary told him that she still knew nothing of what had occurred on May 30, 1960. Besides, Laura was the one Judy wanted to tell, not Mary.
BEEP, BEEP, BEEP, BEEP, BEE -
James reached for his belt and turned off his stupid beeper. Damn. He would have to call in. If not, the hospital would start making calls and James did not want that.
In the distance, James saw his target: The Boston Garden. It could wait another couple of minutes. He pulled over to the side of the road, got out of the car, and trotted over to the phone booth.
Gloria’s words jolted Laura like an electric shock. ‘What do you mean David is not my brother?’
‘May 30,’ Gloria repeated. ‘Read it.’
Laura took the diary from her sister and moved down toward the couch. Mary sat next to her in order to read over her shoulder.
‘I don’t understand any of this,’ Mary said.
Gloria swallowed. ‘Just read.’
Laura opened the book. Her fingers fumbled the pages back and forth until at last she arrived on the right day:
May 30, 1960
This nightmare will never end. I spun the web and now I am caught in it. James’s plan is completely insane and completely ingenious. He has turned Mary’s own charms of seduction to his favor and me into his unwilling accomplice.