Dancing in the Dark (24 page)

“Mr. Tomkins?”

“Yes.”

“I’m Diane Mayfield with KEY News.”

The man stared at her with steely blue eyes but said nothing.

“I’m sorry if I’m disturbing you, Mr. Tomkins. But I was wondering
if you’d be willing to talk to us about your son, Arthur.”

“Well, young lady, you
are
disturbing
me, and I have nothing to say to you. Now, please go.”

Diane flinched as the door was slammed in her face.

The crew stowed the gear in the trunk, and the four of them got into
the car.

“Well,” said Matthew, “it’s not the end of the world if we don’t
have Arthur’s parents. It was worth coming down here anyway for the
Spring Lake beauty shots.”

As the car turned the corner, they saw a woman standing on the curb
waving at them. Sammy stopped, and Diane rolled down the rear window.
“Can we help you with something?” she asked.

The woman looked over her shoulder at the side of the Tomkins house
before leaning closer to the car window. “I’m Barbara Tomkins,” she
said softly. “Arthur’s sister.”

Diane started to open the door.

“Don’t get out,” the woman said urgently. “I don’t have much time. I
don’t want my parents to know that I’m talking to you.”

“All right,” said Diane, taking her hand off the door handle.

“My parents try to pretend Arthur doesn’t exist. They say if I have
anything to do with him, I can forget living with, or even seeing, them
anymore.”

“I’m sorry,” said Diane.

“I am too,” said Barbara. “It puts me in the worst place. My parents
are old and won’t be around for too much longer. Without Arthur, I’m
the only one they’ve got. But I can’t totally abandon my brother.”

Barbara looked over her shoulder again at the gray house before
continuing. “I do sneak up to Ocean Grove to see Arthur once in a
while. Not as much as I should, but as much as I dare. I give him money
and bring up some clothes, but all he ever wears is that military
thing. His life started going downhill when he went to serve in the
Gulf War. God knows why he’d want to be reminded of it all the time.”

“Ms. Tomkins, what did you think when you heard that your brother
was arrested for killing someone?” Diane asked, conscious that there
could be little more time for conversation.

“I thought they’d made a mistake. I don’t believe Arthur would ever
kill anyone.
Ever
.
That’s part
of the reason he had his mental breakdown.”

“Arthur killed during the war?” Diane asked.

“Well, he’s never admitted it to me, but that’s what I suspect. And
even if he didn’t, he saw others killing and being killed. That’s
enough to drive anyone crazy.”

Diane nodded.

“I better go now,” said Barbara, pulling away from the window and
taking a small envelope from her pocket. “I have a favor to ask of you.
Arthur has someone who has been looking out for him up there. I don’t
know his address and I haven’t been able to reach him on the telephone,
but I have a check here for him to help Arthur any way he can. I don’t
dare go up to Ocean Grove and get
involved. You’re with the news. Is there any way you can track him down
for me and give him this?”

Diane was about to decline, fearing that taking on the
responsibility could turn into a real problem, when she saw the name
written on the envelope
.
It shouldn’t be that
hard to find Shawn Ostrander
,
she thought. And delivering
the envelope would provide another opportunity to question the young
man.

Two wrongs didn’t make a right.

Even though Carly wasn’t supposed to die,
she had. That was a terrible thing. But if an innocent man paid for
Carly’s death, that would make things worse.

What to do? What to do?

How to make the police know that Arthur
Tomkins was innocent?

Somehow, Anna managed to get through her lunch shift, though she
spilled iced coffee on one customer and got the orders wrong for three
others. When the replacement waitress came in, Anna went directly to
the ladies’ room to change her clothes.

She opened the nylon gym bag and took out jeans and a long-sleeved
cotton T-shirt. Though Anna was aware that it was too hot for pants and
long sleeves, she had packed the clothes intentionally. After the group
session at Dr. Messinger’s yesterday afternoon, she had gone home and
used the scissors on her inner thighs. She had done it again before she
left for work this morning and known she’d most likely need to do it
again this afternoon. But she couldn’t cut her legs again, so she’d
packed the long-sleeved shirt.

At the bottom of the bag, she found the Band-Aids and paper clips
she had thrown in before she left the house. Anna picked up one of the
metal clips and twisted it straight. With one tip, she began scratching
on the inside of her forearm.

The cutting helped release the painful emotions, the hard-to-express
feelings that were bottled up inside her. But it had to hurt to make it
worthwhile. Anna pressed harder against her smooth, white skin.

How could she have done that to Mr. Velvet? No matter how mean
Leslie was, Anna shouldn’t have taken it out on her beloved rabbit.
Anna hated herself for what she had done.

The end of the paper clip gouged deeper into her arm, drawing blood.
Anna scraped more and more until she felt calmer, and more in control.

The knock at the door startled her.

“I’ll be right out,” she called.

As fast as she could, Anna affixed Band-Aids to the cuts, pulled on
her jeans and the shirt, and tossed the paper clip into the trash. She
was going to have a lot to confess to Dr. Messinger at her individual
therapy session tonight.

As they drove back to Ocean Grove, Diane held the envelope Arthur
Tomkins’s sister had given her and stared at the name written across
it. “Shawn Ostrander,” she mused aloud. “He went out with Leslie
Patterson, dated Carly Neath, and now we find out he has a relationship
with Arthur Tomkins. Two victims and the alleged perpetrator.”

“A triple common denominator,” observed Matthew.

Diane nodded. “Acting as Arthur’s sister’s courier will give us a
good excuse to talk to him again.”

Directory assistance had only one Shawn Ostrander listed. When she
called the number there was no answer, but Diane left a message. “This
is Diane Mayfield, Shawn. I have something I was asked to give to you.
Please call me back and we’ll set up a mutually convenient time to
meet.”

While Diane left her message, Matthew called New York. Plans hadn’t
changed. They still had no responsibility for a piece on the evening
broadcast, but of course, there was always more they could shoot for the
Hourglass
piece.

“It’s three o’clock,” said Matthew. “How about we break for a while
and meet up again later? There’s a summer concert at the Great
Auditorium at eight. We can get some atmosphere video, maybe get some
sound from the attendees about their opinions on Arthur Tomkins’s
arrest.”

Diane was quiet.

“Of course, I could go alone and do it with the crew. You don’t have
to go, Diane.”

“No, that’s all right, Matthew. I’m fine with going. I was just
wondering if the kids and Emily would enjoy the concert. I’m not
spending nearly enough time with them.”

Before Matthew could respond, Diane’s cell phone rang. It was Leslie
Patterson calling to say she would be willing to talk to them again, as
soon as possible.

Leslie was waiting on a bench near the beach badges and information
center when the KEY News people arrived. Diane had suggested they meet
on the boardwalk, knowing the camera crew would want to get some long
video shots of correspondent and interview subject chatting as they
walked together, material that could be used to run with narration
covering it in the edited segment. Leslie and Diane would be miked for
their stroll, just in case any question or answer turned out to be
useful to the piece.

“How ‘bout we walk up the boardwalk, toward Asbury Park, while we
talk?” Diane suggested after the microphones were in place. Walking
backward, the camera crew recorded as the two women stepped forward and
Diane began the conversation.

“You know, Leslie, the thing we didn’t get a chance to speak about
the last time we talked, on Saturday at the gazebo where you were
found, is what you remember about the night you were set free. How did
you get to the gazebo?”

Leslie kept walking, staring off at the Casino in the distance.
“Well, I remember I had a headache, just as I imagine Carly must have
if her killer hit her over the head as he did me. I remember my hands
and feet were still tied up, and he lifted me up under my armpits and
dragged me from wherever we were.”

“Did you fight him?” Diane asked.

Leslie hung her head. “No, I wish I could say I did, but I didn’t. I
was so afraid he was going to kill me, I didn’t struggle.”

“So he was just pulling a deadweight?”

“Pretty much,” Leslie agreed.

“And then what happened?” Diane stared down at the planks of the
boardwalk as she listened to Leslie’s answer.

“Once we got outside of wherever we were, the sound of the ocean was
stronger. I remember feeling the air smelled fresher. But it was only
for a minute or two, because then he pulled me up and loaded me into
the trunk.”

“Of his car?”

“I’m assuming that’s what it was. I was blindfolded, but I had to
curl up to fit in the space and I heard the cover slam above me. God, it was scary.” Leslie rubbed
her bare arms despite the afternoon heat.

“I can only imagine,” said Diane. “What happened next?”

Leslie inhaled deeply and continued. “I could feel I was being
moved. I knew we were traveling. I couldn’t tell which direction we
were going.”

“How long were you moving?”

“I’m not really sure. It seemed like a long time, but every minute I
was held seemed like a long time. Maybe it wasn’t too long at all
before the car stopped and I heard the trunk being unlocked.”

“And then?”

The women were at the end of the boardwalk now, the old Casino right
in front of them. They stopped and leaned over the railing to look out
at the water as the camera crew scrambled down to shoot them from the
beach.

“And then he pulled me up and out and dragged me across the grass
and deposited me next to the gazebo. I guess that’s the same thing that
happened to Carly,” Leslie mused. “Except she wasn’t as lucky as I was.
She was already dead when he left her there.”

“Let’s sit over on that bench for the rest of the interview, shall
we?” Diane suggested. The two broke off their conversation as they
seated themselves and the camera crew climbed up from the beach and got
into position again.

“Leslie, the last time we talked you told me about the dancing your
captor forced you to do.”

“Yes?” Leslie wrung her hands in her lap.

“Can you tell me more?”

Leslie sighed deeply. “It was horrible. Not knowing who was holding
me that way. I used to have such good feelings about dancing. I can
remember my father dancing with me when I was a little girl, letting me
stand on his shoes as we danced around the living room. I remember how
great it felt to dance with Shawn too.” The camera recorded as Leslie
shivered. “I don’t think I’ll ever feel comfortable dancing with a man
again.”

Diane cast around in her mind for her final questions. “It’s truly a
horrible thing that Carly is dead, Leslie. But it has made the police
believe you; it’s made everyone realize you weren’t making up your
story. You have to feel better about that, don’t you?”