Harlan Coben - Drop Shot

Myron paused. Valerie hadn't needed a bodyguard against a stalker, yet Pavel needs one against pestering parents and autograph hounds. It made one wonder. "I'd like to talk about Valerie's breakdown, if that's all right"

Helen Van Slyke stiffened slightly. "I think it's best to leave that alone, Mr. Bolitar."

"Why?"

"It was painful. You have no idea how painful. My daughter had a mental collapse, Mr. Bolitar. She was only eighteen years old. Beautiful. Talented. A professional athlete. Successful by any rational measure. And she had a breakdown. It was stressful on all of us. We tried our best to help her get well, to keep it from getting in the papers and becoming public. We tried our best to keep it under wraps."

She stopped then and closed her eyes.

"Mrs. Van Slyke."

"I'm fine," she said.

Silence.

"You were saying how you tried to keep it under wraps," Myron prompted.

The eyes reopened. She smiled and sort of smoothed her skirt. "Yes, well, I didn't want this episode ruining her life. You know how people talk. For the rest of her life people would point and whisper. I didn't want that. And yes, I was embarrassed too. I was younger, Mr. Bolitar. I was afraid of how her breakdown would reflect on the Brentman family name."

"Brentman?"

"My maiden name. This estate is known as Brentman Hall. My first husband was named Simpson. A mistake. A social climber. Kenneth is my second husband. I know tongues wag about our age differences, but the Van Slykes are an old family. His great-great-grandfather and my great-grandfather were partners."

Good reason to get married. ''How long have you and Kenneth been married?"

"Six years last April."

"I see. So you got married around the same time Valerie was hospitalized."

Her eyes narrowed and her words came slower now. "What exactly are you implying, Mr. Bolitar?"

"Nothing," Myron said. "I wasn't implying anything. Really." Well, maybe a little. "Tell me about Alexander Cross."

She stiffened again, almost like a spasm. "What about him?" She sounded annoyed now.

"He and Valerie were serious?"

"Mr. Bolitar" – impatience creeping in – "Windsor Lockwood is an old family friend. He is the reason I agreed to see you. You earlier portrayed yourself as a man concerned with finding my daughter's killer."

"I am."

"Then please tell me what Alexander Cross or Valerie's breakdown or my own marriage has to do with your task?"

"I am making an assumption, Mrs. Van Slyke. I am assuming that this was not a random killing, that the person who shot your daughter was not a stranger. That means I have to know about her life. All of it. I don't ask these questions to amuse myself. I need to know who would have feared Valerie or hated her or had a lot to gain by her death. That means digging into all the unpleasantries of her life."

She held his gaze a beat too long and then looked away. "Just what do you know about my daughter, Mr. Bolitar?"

"The basics," Myron said. "Valerie became tennis's next wunderkind at the French Open when she was only sixteen. Expectations ran wild, but her play quickly leveled off. Then it grew worse. She was stalked by an obsessive fan named Roger Quincy. She had a relationship with the son of a prominent politician, who was later murdered. Then she had a mental collapse. Now I need to fill in – and illuminate – more pieces of this puzzle."

"It's very difficult to talk about all this."

"I understand that," Myron said gently. He opted now for the Alan Alda smile over the Phil Donahue. More teeth, moister eyes.

"There's nothing more I can tell you, Mr. Bolitar. I don't know why anyone would want to kill her."

"Perhaps you can tell me about the last few months,'' Myron said. "How was Valerie feeling? Did anything unusual happen?"

Helen fiddled with her strand of pearls, twisting them around her fingers until they made a red mark around her neck. "She finally started getting better," she said, her voice more of a choke now. "I think tennis helped. For years she wouldn't touch a racket. Then she started playing. A little at first. Just for fun."

The facade collapsed then. Helen Van Slyke lost it. The tears came hard. Myron took her hand. Her grip was both strong and shaky.

"I'm sorry," Myron said.

She shook her head, forcing the words out. "Valerie started playing every day. It made her stronger. Physically, emotionally. She finally seemed to be putting it all behind her. And then…" She stopped again, her eyes suddenly flat. "That bastard."

She might have been talking about the unknown killer. But somehow the anger seemed more specific.

"Who?" Myron tried.

"Helen?"

Kenneth was back. He quickly crossed the room and took his wife in his arms. Myron thought he saw her back away at his touch, but he couldn't be sure.

Kenneth looked over her shoulder at Myron. "See what you've done," he hissed. "Get out."

"Mrs. Van Slyke?"

She nodded. "Please leave, Mr. Bolitar. It's for the best."

"Are you sure?"

Kenneth bellowed again. "Get out! Now! Before I throw you out!"

Myron looked at him. Not the time or the place. "I'm sorry for the intrusion, Mrs. Van Slyke. My most sincere condolences."

Myron showed himself out.

When Myron entered the small police station Jake's chin was coated with something red and sticky. Might have been from a jelly doughnut. Might have been from a small farm animal. Hard to tell with Jake.

Jake Courter had been elected sheriff of Reston, New Jersey two years before. In view of the fact that Jake was black in an almost entirely white community, most people considered the election result an upset. But not Jake. Reston was a college town. College towns were filled with liberal intellectuals who wanted to lift a black man up. Jake figured his skin color had been enough of a disadvantage over the years, might as well turn the tide. White guilt, he told Myron. The best vote-getter this side of Willie Horton ads.

Jake was in his early fifties. He'd been a cop in a half dozen major cities over the years – New York, Philadelphia, Boston, to name a few. Tired of chasing city scum, he'd moved out to the happy suburbs to chase suburban scum. Myron and Jake met a year ago, investigating the disappearance of Kathy Culver, Jessica's sister, a student at Reston University.

"Hey, Myron."

"Jake."

Jake looked, as always, rumpled. Everything about him. His hair. His clothes. Even his desk looked rumpled, like a cotton shirt kept in the bottom of a laundry hamper. The desk also had an assortment of goodies. A Pizza Hut box. A Wendy's bag. A Carvel ice-cream cup. A half-eaten sandwich from Blimpie. And, of course, a tin of Slim-Fast diet powder. Jake was closing in on two hundred and seventy-five pounds. His pants never fit right They were too small for his stomach, too large for his waist. He was constantly adjusting them, searching for that one elusive point where they'd actually stay in place. The search required a team of top scientists and a really powerful microscope.

"Let's go grab a couple burgers," Jake said, wiping his face with a moist towelette. "I'm starving."

Myron picked up the Slim-Fast can and smiled sweetly. "'A delicious shake for breakfast. Another for lunch. And then a sensible dinner.'"

"Bullshit. I gave it a try. The shit doesn't work."

"How long were you on it?"

"Almost a day. Zip, nothing. Not a pound gone."

"You should sue."

"Plus the stuff tastes like used gunpowder."

"You get the file on Alexander Cross?"

"Yeah, right here. Let's go."

Myron followed Jake down the street. They stopped at a place very generously dubbed the Royal Court Diner. A pit If it were totally renovated, it might reach the sanitary status of an interstate public toilet.