Drop Shot (1996) (25 page)

When it was Myron's turn Helen gripped his hand hard. "Do you know who hurt Valerie?"

"Yes." She had said hurt, Myron noted. Not kill.

Helen Van Slyke looked at Win for confirmation. Win nodded.

"Come back to the house," she said. "There's going to be a reception." She turned to the next mourner and hit PLAY on her internal tape recorder. "Good of you to come, thank you for coming, good of you to come' "

Myron and Win did as she asked. The mood at Brentman Hall was neither Irish wake-like nor devastating grief. There were no tears. No laughter. Either would have been more welcome than this room completely void of any emotion. "Mourners" milled around like they were at an office cocktail party.

"No one cares," Myron said. "She's gone and no one cares."

Win shrugged. "No one ever does." The eternal optimist.

The first person to approach them was Kenneth. He was dressed in proper black with well-shined shoes. He greeted Win with a back slap and a firm handshake. He ignored Myron.

"How are you holding up?" Win asked. Like he cared.

"Oh I'm doing okay," he said with a heavy sigh. Mr. Brave. "But I'm worried about Helen. We've had to medicate her."

"I'm sorry to hear that," Myron said.

Kenneth turned to him, as though seeing him for the first time. He made a face like he was sucking on a lemon. "Do you mean that?" he asked.

Myron and Win shared a glance. "Yes, I do, Kenneth," Myron said.

"Then do me the courtesy of staying away from my wife. She was very upset after your visit the other day."

"I meant no harm."

"Well, you caused plenty of it, I can tell you. I think it's high time, Mr. Bolitar, you showed some respect. Leave my wife alone. We are grieving here. She's lost her daughter and I've lost my stepdaughter."

Win rolled his eyes.

Myron said, "You have my word, Kenneth."

Kenneth nodded a manly nod and moved away.

"His stepdaughter," Win said in disgust. "Bah."

From across the room Myron caught Helen Van Slyke's eye. She made a gesture toward a door on her right and slipped through it. Like they were meeting for a secret liaison.

"Keep Kenneth away," Myron said.

Win feigned surprise. "But you gave Kenneth your word."

"Bah," Myron said. Whatever that meant.

He ducked through the doorway and followed Helen. She too wore all black, a suit of some sort with the skirt cut just low enough to be sexy yet proper. Good legs, he noticed, and felt like a pig for thinking such a thing at such a time. She led him to a small room down the end of an ornate corridor and closed the door behind them. The room looked like a miniature version of the living room. The chandelier was smaller. The couch was smaller. The fireplace was smaller. The portrait over the mantel was smaller.

"This is the drawing room," Helen Van Slyke explained.

"Oh," Myron said. He'd always wanted to know what a drawing room was. Now that he was in one he still had no idea.

"Would you care for some tea?"

"No thanks."

"Do you mind if I have some?"

"Not at all," he said.

She sat demurely and poured herself a cup from the silver set on the table. Myron noticed that there were two tea sets on the table. He wondered if that was a clue as to the definition of drawing room.

"Kenneth tells me you're on medication," he said.

"Kenneth is full of shit"

Big surprise.

"Are you still investigating Valerie's murder?" she asked. There was almost a mocking quality in her voice. Her words also seemed just a tad slurred, and Myron wondered if perhaps she was indeed being medicated or if she'd added a little home brew to her tea.

"Yes," he said.

"Do you still feel some chivalrous responsibility toward her?"

"I never did."

"Then why do you do it?"

Myron shrugged. "Someone should care."

She looked up, searching his face for a shred of sarcasm. "I see," she said. "So tell me: what have you learned from your investigation?"

"Pavel Menansi abused your daughter."

Myron watched for a reaction. Helen Van Slyke smiled semi-teasingly and put a sugar cube in her tea. Not exactly the reaction he had in mind. "You can't be serious," she said. "I am."

"What do you mean, abused?"

"Sexual abuse."

"As in rape?"

"You may call it that, yes."

She made a scoffing noise. "Come now, Mr. Bolitar. Isn't that a tad extreme?"

"No."

"It is not as though Pavel forced himself on her, is it? They had an affair. It's hardly unheard of."

"You knew about it?"

"Of course. And frankly, I was quite displeased. Pavel showed poor judgment. But my daughter was sixteen years old at the time maybe seventeen, I'm not really sure. Anyway, she was certainly of legal age. Calling it rape or sexual abuse, well, I think that's being a tad overdramatic, don't you?"

Maybe both medication and booze. Maybe even mixing them. "Valerie was a young girl," he said. "Pavel Menansi was her coach, a man of nearly fifty."

"Would it have made it any better if he was forty? Or thirty?"

"No," Myron said.

"So why bring up their age difference?" She put down the tea. The smile was again toying with her lips. "Let me ask you a question, Mr. Bolitar. If Valerie was a sixteen-year-old boy and he had an affair with a beautiful female coach who was, let's say, thirty would you call that sexual abuse? Would you call that rape?"

Myron hesitated for a second. It was a second too long.

"I thought so," she said triumphantly. "You're a sexist, Mr. Bolitar. Valerie had an affair with an older man. It happens all the time." Again the playful smile. "To me even."

"Did you have a breakdown after it was over?"

She raised an eyebrow. "So that's your definition of abuse?" she asked. "A breakdown?"

"You entrusted your daughter to this man," Myron said. "He was supposed to help her. But he used her instead. He tore her down. He destroyed and discarded her."

"Tore? Destroyed? Discarded? My, my, Mr. Bolitar, we are out for shock effect, aren't we?"

"You don't see anything wrong with what he did?"

She put down her tea and took a cigarette. She lit it, inhaled deeply with her eyes closed, and let it all out. "If it makes you happy to blame me for what happened, fine, blame me. I was a lousy mother. The worst. Is that better?"

Myron watched her calmly smoking her cigarette and sipping her tea. Too calmly. Did she really buy this crap she was peddling? Or was it an act? Was she just deluding herself or'

"Pavel bought you off," Myron said.

"No."

"TruPro and Pavel are paying "

"That's not it at all," she interrupted.

"We know about the money, Mrs. Van Slyke."

"You don't understand. Pavel blames himself for what happened. He took it upon himself to remedy the situation in the only way he could."

"By paying you off."

"By providing us with some of the funds Valerie may have earned had her career continued. He didn't have to do that. The affair wasn't necessarily the cause "

"It's called hush money."

"Never," she said in a near-hiss. "Valerie was my daughter."

"And you sold her for cash."

She shook her head. "I did what I thought was best for my daughter."

"He abused her. You took his money. You let him get away with it."

"There was nothing I could do," she said. "We didn't want to make it public. Valerie wanted to put it behind her. She wanted to keep it confidential. We all did."

"Why?" Myron said. "It was just an affair with an older man. Happens all the time. To you even."

She bit down on her lip for a moment. When she spoke again her voice was softer. "There was nothing I could do," she repeated. "It was in everyone's best interest to keep it quiet."

"Bullshit," Myron said. He realized he was pushing too hard, but something inside of him wouldn't let him back off. "You sold your daughter."

She was silent for a few moments, concentrating only on her cigarette, watching the ash grow longer and longer. In the distance they could hear the low rumble from the funeral crowd. Glasses clinking. A polite titter.

"They threatened Valerie," she said.

"Who?"

"I don't know. Men who work with Pavel. They made it very clear that if she opened her mouth she was dead." She looked up, pleading. "Don't you see? What option did we have? No good could come from talking. They'd kill her. I was afraid for Valerie. Kenneth well, I think Kenneth was more interested in the money. Hindsight may be twenty-twenty, but at the time I believed it was the best thing."

"You were protecting your daughter," Myron said.

"Yes."

"But she's dead now."

Helen was puzzled. "I don't understand."

"You don't have to worry about her being hurt anymore. She's dead. You're free to do as you please."

She opened her mouth, closed it, tried again. "I have another daughter," she managed. "I have a husband."

"So then what was all that talk before about protecting Valerie?"

"It' I was trying' " Her voice churned to a silence.

"You took the hush money," Myron said. He tried to remind himself that the woman who sat before him had buried her daughter today, but not even that fact could slow him down. If anything, it seemed to fuel him. "Don't blame your husband. He's a spineless worm. You were Valerie's mother. You took money to protect a man who abused your daughter. And now you'll keep taking money to protect a man who might have killed her."

"You have no proof Pavel had anything to do with her murder."

"The murder, no. His other crimes against Valerie that's a different story."

She closed her eyes. "It's too late."

"It's not too late. He's still doing it, you know. Guys like Pavel don't stop. They just find new victims."

"There's nothing I can do."

"I have a friend," Myron said. "Her name is Jessica Culver. She's a writer."

"I know who she is."

He handed her Jess's card. "Tell her the story. She'll write it up. Put it in a major publication. Sports Illustrated maybe. It'll be out before Pavel's people even know about it. They're bad men, but they're not wasteful or stupid. Once it's published there'll be no reason to go after your family anymore. It'll end him."

"I'm sorry." She lowered her head. "I can't do it."

She was crumbling. Her whole body was slumped and shaking. Myron watched her, tried to muster up some pity, couldn't do it. "You left her alone with him," he continued. "You didn't look after her. And when you had the chance to help her, you told her to bury it You took money."

Her body racked. Probably from a sob. Attacking a mother at her own daughter's funeral, Myron thought. What could he do for an encore? Drown newborn kittens in the neighbor's pool?

"Perhaps," he went on, "Valerie wanted to tell the truth. Maybe she needed that to put it all behind her. And maybe that's why she was murdered."

Silence. Then without warning Helen Van Slyke raised her head. She stood and left without saying another word. Myron followed. When he reentered the living room he could hear her voice.

"Good of you to come. Thank you for coming."

Chapter
32

Lucinda Elright was big and warm with thick, jiggly arms and an easy laugh. The kind of woman that as a child you feared would hug you too hard and as an adult you wish like hell she would.

"Come on in," she said, shooing several small children away from the door.

"Thank you," Myron said.

"You want something to eat?"

"No thanks."

"How about some cookies?" There were at least ten kids in the apartment. All black, none over the age of seven or eight. Some were using a paint set. Some were building a castle out of sugar cubes. One, a boy about six years old, was sticking his tongue out at Myron. "Not homemade, you understand. I can't cook worth spit."

"Actually, cookies sound good."

She smiled. "I do day care now that I'm retired. Hope you don't mind."

"Not at all."

Mrs. Elright went into the kitchen. The little boy waited until she was out of the room. Then he stuck his tongue out again. Myron stuck his tongue out back. Mr. Mature. The kid giggled.

"Now sit, Myron. Right over there." She knocked various paraphernalia off the sofa. The plate was full of the classics. Oreos. Chips Ahoys. Fig Newtons.

"Eat," she said.

Myron reached for a cookie. The little boy stood behind Mrs. Elright so he couldn't be seen. He stuck his tongue out again. Without so much as a backward glance Mrs. Elright said, "Gerald, you stick your tongue out one more time, I'll cut it off with my pruning shears."