Harlan Coben - The Final Detail

“I see.”

“It was a very special day for us.”

“I'm sure.”

“We had it at the Manor in West Orange. You know it?”

“I was bar mitzvahed there,” Myron said.

“Really? Your parents must have very fond memories of the day.”

“Yes.” But now he wondered. I mean, Mom and Dad kept most of the photos in an album.

Mrs. Palms smiled at him. “It's odd, I know, but… oh, I've explained this a thousand times. What's one more?” She sighed, signaled to a couch. Myron sat. She did likewise.

Mrs. Palms folded her hands and looked at him with the blank stare of a woman who sat too close to life's big screen. “People take pictures of their most special times,” she began too earnestly. “They want to capture the important moments. They want to enjoy them and savor them and relive them. But that's not what they do. They take the picture, they look at it once, and then they stick it in a box and forget about it. Not me. I remember the good times. I wallow in them-re-create them, if I can. After all, we live for those moments, don't we, Myron?”

He nodded.

“So when I sit in this room, it warms me. I'm surrounded by one of the happiest moments in my life. I've created the most positive aura imaginable.”

He nodded again.

“I'm not a big art fan,” she continued. “I don't relish the idea of hanging impersonal lithographs on the walls. What's the point of looking at images of people and places I don't know? I don't care that much about interior design. And I don't like antiques or phony-baloney Martha Stewart stuff. But do you know what I do find beautiful?” She stopped and looked at him expectantly.

Myron picked up his cue. “What?”

“My family,” she replied. “My family is beautiful to me. My family is art. Does that make sense to you, Myron?”

“Yes.” Oddly enough, it did.

“So I call this Sarah's Wedding Room. I know that's silly. Naming rooms. Blowing up old photographs and using them as wallpaper. But all the rooms are like this. Billy Lee's bedroom upstairs I call the Catcher's Mitt. It's where he still stays when he's here. I think it comforts him.” She raised her eyebrows. “Would you like to see it?”

“Sure.”

She practically leaped off the couch. The stairwell was plastered with giant, seemingly old black and whites. A stern-faced couple in wedding gear. A soldier in full uniform. “This is the Generational Wall. That's my great-grandparents over there. And Hank's. My husband. He died three years ago.” I m sorry.

She shrugged. “This stairwell goes back three generations. I think it's a nice way of remembering our ancestors.”

Myron didn't argue. He looked at the photograph of the young couple, just starting out their life together, probably a little scared. Now they were dead.

Deep Thoughts by Myron Bolitar.

“I know what you're thinking,” she said. “But is it any stranger than hanging oils of dead relatives? Just more lifelike.”

Hard to argue.

The walls in the upstairs corridor featured some sort of costume party from the seventies. Lots of leisure suits and bell-bottoms. Myron didn't ask, and Mrs. Palms didn't explain. Just as well. She turned left and Myron trailed her into the Catcher's Mitt. It lived up to its billing. Billy Lee's baseball life was laid out like a Hall of Fame display room. It started with Billy Lee in Little League, squatting in his catcher's stance, his smile huge and strangely confident for so young a child. The years flashed by. Little League to Babe Ruth League to high school to Duke, ending with his one glorious year with the Orioles, Billy Lee proudly showing off his'World Series ring. Myron studied the Duke photographs. One had been taken out in front of Psi U, their frat house. A uniformed Billy Lee had his arm around Clu, plenty of frat brothers in the background, including, he saw now, him and Win. Myron remembered when the picture had been taken. The baseball team had just beaten Florida State to win the national championship. The party had lasted three days.

“Mrs. Palms, where is Billy Lee?”

“I don't know.”

“When you say you don't know-”

“He ran off,” she interrupted. “Again.”

“He's done this before?”

She stared at the wall. Her eyes were glassy now. “Maybe Billy Lee doesn't find this room comforting,” she said softly. “Maybe it reminds him of what could have been.” She turned to him. “When was the last time you saw Billy Lee?”

Myron tried to remember. “It's been a long time.”

“How come?”

“We were never that close.”

She pointed to the wall. “That's you? In the background?”

“That's right.”

“Billy Lee spoke about you.”

“Really?”

“He said you were a sports agent. Clu's agent, if I'm not mistaken.”

“Yes.”

“You stayed friendly with Clu then?”

“Yes.”

She nodded as though this explained everything. “Why are you looking for my son, Myron?”

He was not sure how to explain. “You've heard about Clu's death?”

“Yes, of course. That poor boy. A lost soul. Like Billy Lee in many ways. I think that's why they were drawn to each other.”

“Have you seen Clu lately?”

“Why do you want to know?”

In for a penny and all that. “I'm trying to find out who killed him.”

Her body stiffened as though his words held a small electric shock. “And you think Billy Lee had something to do with it?”

“No, of course not.” But even as he said it, he began to wonder. Clu is murdered; maybe his killer runs away. More reasonable doubt. “It's just that I know how close they were. I thought maybe Billy Lee could help me out.”

Mrs. Palms was staring at the image of the two ballplayers in front of Psi U. She reached out as though to stroke her son's face. But she pulled back. “Billy Lee was handsome, wasn't he?”

“Yes.”

“The girls,” she said. “They all loved my Billy Lee.”

“I'd never seen anybody better with them,” he said.

That made her smile. She kept staring at the image of her son. It was kinda creepy. Myron remembered the old episode of The Twilight Zone where the aging movie queen escapes reality by stepping into one of her old movies. It looked like Mrs. Palms craved doing likewise.

She finally tore her eyes away. “Clu came by a few weeks ago.”

“Can you be more specific?”

“ Tunny.”

“What?”

“That's just what th^ police asked.”

“The police were here?”

“Sure.”

They must have gone through the phone records too, Myron thought. Or found another link.

“I'll tell you the same thing I told them. I can't be more specific.”

“Do you know what Clu wanted?”

“He came to see Billy Lee.”

“Billy Lee was here?”

“Yes.”

“He lives here then?”

“On and off. The past few years have not been very good to my son.”

Silence.

“I don't mean to pry,” Myron began, “but-”

“What happened to Billy Lee?” she finished. “Life caught up with him, Myron. The drinking, the drugs, the womanizing. He had stints in rehab. Are you familiar with Rockwell?”

“No, ma'am.”

“It's a private clinic. He finished his fourth trip to Rockwell not two months ago. But he couldn't stay clean. When you're in college or even in your twenties, you can survive it. When you're a big star and people are looking out for you, you can get away with it. But Billy Lee wasn't good enough to reach that level. So he had no one to fall back upon. Except me. And I'm not that strong.”

Myron swallowed. “Do you know why Clu came to see Billy Lee?”

“For old times' sake, I guess. They went out. Maybe they had a few beers and chased women. I really don't know.”