Free You belong to me by Mary Higgins Clark Page A

Susan, I didn't mean to make a crack about the divorce," her mother said.
    "Sure you did. You do it all the time."
    "That's true," her mother agreed cheerfully. "But I really did call to tell you about Regina Clausen. She got quite chatty with us-you know what a schmoozer your father can be-and she told us that on her next long vacation, she was planning to go on a cruise. She clearly was excited about it. I told her I hoped the people on board wouldn't keep bothering her for investment advice. I remember she laughed and said something about looking forward to having some fun and excitement, and that did not include discussing the Dow Jones average. She said her father had had a heart attack in his forties, and that before he died he talked with regret about the vacations he'd never made time for."
    "What you're telling me just serves to reinforce the theory that she did have some kind of shipboard romance," Susan said. "Certainly it sounds like she was open to the idea and probably would have been receptive." She thought of the turquoise ring Jane Clausen had given her. "Yes, I think that's what happened to her, a well-concealed shipboard romance."
    "Well, what she said clearly helped put a bug in your father's ear. We separated shortly after that. He had his plastic surgery, got rid of his gray hair, and started running around with Binky. Incidentally he's encouraging Dee to take a cruise now. Did she tell you about that?"
    Susan looked at the clock. She didn't want to cut her mother off, but she needed to be on her way. "No, I didn't know Dee was thinking about a cruise herself. But then I missed her call yesterday," she said.
    Her mother's voice became troubled. "I'm worried about Dee, Susan. She's down. She's lonely. She's not springing back. She's not strong like you."
    "You're pretty strong yourself, Mom."
    Her mother laughed. "Not consistently, but I'm getting there. Susan, don't work too hard."
    "Meaning find a nice guy, get married, be happy."
    "Something like that. Anybody interesting you haven't told me about? When Dee phoned she mentioned someone she met at the Binky-Charley party who seemed very smitten with you. She said he was terribly attractive."
    Susan thought of Alex Wright. "He's not bad."
    "According to Dee he's much more than 'not bad.'"
    "Bye, Mom," Susan said firmly. After she hung up, she put her coffee cup in the microwave and turned up the TV sound again. A reporter was talking about an elderly woman who had been stabbed to death in her Upper East Side apartment. Susan was just about to turn off the TV when the anchorman replayed the segment from the previous evening's news that included the report that Hilda Johnson, the murder victim, had called the police, claiming that the woman who had been run over on Park Avenue had been deliberately pushed during a mugging.
    Susan stared at the television, realizing that the prosecutor in her was refusing to believe that these two events were coincidental, while the psychologist in her was wondering what kind of out-of-control mind could commit two such brutal crimes.
    21
    Even though he had found her terribly irritating, Captain Tom Shea of the 19th Precinct had been fond of Hilda Johnson. As he pointed out to his men, the bottom line was that usually there was some validity to Hilda's complaints. For example, a derelict she accused of hanging around the playground in the park turned out to have a record of minor sex offenses against young children. And the kid she complained about who kept riding his bike around her neighborhood got caught red-handed mugging an elderly pedestrian.
    Standing now in Hilda Johnson's apartment, Captain Shea felt both anger and tenderness at the sight of the limp, chenille-covered remains of the old woman. The crime photographers had taken their pictures. The coroner had done his job. It was okay to touch her.
    Shea knelt beside Hilda. Her eyes were staring, her face frozen into an expression of panic. Gently he turned her palm