Hope to Die

And now, he thinks, they'll turn the corner and get in their car, leaving him on foot. Or they'll hail a taxi. Well, if there's one cab there'll be two. With luck his taxi can follow their taxi.

But they don't get in a car, or hail a cab. They turn down Columbus Avenue, and the young one whips out a cellular phone and makes a call, talks, then hands the phone to the older man, who's done talking by the time they cross Seventy-second Street. The young one puts the phone away and they walk west another block, disappearing into the subway entrance at the corner of Broadway and Seventy-second.

It's remarkably easy to follow them. The station's poorly designed, and there are separate turnstiles for the uptown and downtown platforms, but he's lucky, he's close enough to see them go through the uptown turnstiles, and he follows in their wake and picks a spot a dozen yards from where they're standing. He positions himself so that he can watch them out of the corner of his eye, but they will only see him in profile, with his body largely screened by others.

Not that they're looking around, not that they suspect a thing. He could probably stand right next to them without arousing suspicion.

He considers it, thinking it might be interesting to know what they are saying.

If it were just the one man, the older man, and if there were fewer people on the platform- well, that sort of thing happens all the time, doesn't it? You stand close, waiting, timing the approach of the oncoming train, then give a sudden lurch, a shove, and, if you are clever about it, you can even make it appear to anyone watching as though you are trying to save the person, trying to grab hold of the fellow you've just sent hurtling into the train's path.

Ridiculous even to think about it. But he has to acknowledge that his hands are tingling, as if anticipating their role.

Interesting, what you learned about yourself…

An express train comes. They board it and so does he, entering the same car by a different door. They stand, their hands a foot apart on the overhead rail. He sits, watching them without being watched in return.

One stop to Ninety-sixth Street. The doors open. They get out, talking, paying no attention, and he follows. Again he plants himself ten or a dozen yards away, and follows them onto the Broadway local when it arrives.

TWENTY-THREE

On the street I said, "I hope I was right."

" 'Bout her not needin' a will?"

"Uh-huh. She's sitting on what, nine or ten million dollars? This may be hard to believe, but there are cases on record where people have killed for less than that."

"Some for as little as twenty thousand."

"Just what I was thinking."

"She didn't know about it, though. Lia."

"That's according to Kristin. No way of telling what Aunt Susan might have let slip, along with the combination for the keypad."

"Coulda known about it," he allowed. "Coulda thought it'd be more. Can't quite see her as the Third Man, though."

"Does she have a boyfriend?"

"Never mentioned one. Don't mean she don't have one." We were walking as we talked, and as we neared the corner he said, "Here's what don't make sense. If she's involved, what she wants is what happens- the cops wrap it up an' close the case. Otherwise why stage it that way?"

"So why does she say anything to you? Why let on she's suspicious of Kristin?"

He nodded. "That's what don't make sense."

"Twenty thousand's not really all that much," I said. "Not as a payoff for an operation like this. Maybe she was expecting more."

"Like how much?"

"I don't know, pick a number. A hundred thousand? She sees how the Hollanders live and they look to her like they've got more money than God, and Aunt Susan says she's made a provision for her to see her through college, and who knows what kind of dollar-sign sugarplums start dancing in her head? Then she finds out it's twenty thousand dollars and that seems like nothing. On the other hand, if Kristin's implicated, she can't profit from her parents' death. And the whole pie gets chopped up among the surviving relatives."

"So what's she get?"

"How many relatives did she name before, eight or ten? Say there are more she didn't mention, say a total of twenty, and say they all get equal shares. What is that, half a million dollars?"

"More'n twenty thousand."

"A lot more," I said, and pictured the ash-blond waif, the see-through skin, the big soulful eyes. "But I can't believe she was involved. Not knowingly."

"What you lookin' for?"

"A pay phone," I said. "Do you see one anywhere?"

"Got a free one," he said, and took his cell phone from his pocket. I said I didn't suppose he remembered Lia Parkman's number, and he rolled his eyes. "Don't need to remember it," he said. "Got her on my speed dial." He punched some numbers, flicked a lever, and held the contraption to his ear. After a moment he said, "Lia? T J. Hold on a second."

He covered the mouthpiece with his hand. "You really oughta get one of these," he said, and handed me the phone.

We rode up on the subway, meeting her at the Salonika, the same place as last time. She was waiting for us in a booth, an iced tea half finished in front of her. I said I'd have the same, and T J ordered a Coke. The waitress didn't seem to mind that no one was having any food. It was an off-hour, and if we weren't there the booth would be empty.

Lia had been surprised to hear from me. I'd done such a good job of setting her mind to rest that she'd never have guessed I was following up on the inquiry she'd set in motion. Her first reaction was one of alarm. She didn't want to make trouble for Kristin, that was the last thing she wanted, and now that the initial shock had worn off she couldn't imagine what had ever led her to have such a crazy idea in the first place. She'd seen Kristin since then, and Kristin was completely rocked by the death of her parents, and…

I assured her that Kristin wasn't a suspect. But, I said, there were some unanswered questions in the case, some possibility that the burglary had been arranged, that the killers had had inside help.

"The burglar alarm," she said.

"The burglar alarm code, the front door key, the Hollanders' schedule. I was just wondering if someone could have wormed any pertinent information out of you."

"Out of me?"

"Well, you or your boyfriend."

"Well, I don't have a boyfriend," she said, "so that's not it. And nobody even knew about my aunt and uncle or where they lived or anything. So I can't think how anybody could have gotten any information from me."

There was something she wasn't telling me. I could feel its presence there, parked on the edge of thought. I tried a few approaches, and then I said, "How about the key? Did anybody borrow it?"

"No, of course not."

"But you did have a key, didn't you?"

"Aunt Susan gave it to me."

"You didn't mention it before," I said. "You and your aunt came home one day, and she had her arms full of packages, so she gave you the key and had you open the door. Then she told you the keypad code so you could turn off the alarm."

I hadn't meant to scare her, but I did. She looked like a waif caught in the headlights.

Gently I said, "Isn't that what you said?"

"Yes. That's what happened, but the way you said it just now- "

"If you had your own key, why did your aunt hand you hers?"

"I didn't have a key then. Later on she gave me one. In case I needed to get in when nobody was home, she said. And she reminded me I already knew how to deactivate the alarm. Just be sure to set it again before I left, she said."

"And did you have much occasion to use your key?"

"I don't think I ever used it," she said. "Until you mentioned it just now, I more or less forgot I had it. And nobody else knew I had it, and I certainly never let anybody borrow it."