On the Street Where you Live by Mary Higgins Clark Read Free Book Online

many of the other guests at that final festive gathering, they had not gone immediately to the Lawrence home. Rachel had pointed out to her husband that only the very closest friends would be welcome at such a time of grief. The finality in her voice left no room for discussion.
    Sixty-four-years old, Rachel was handsome, with shoulder-length iron-gray hair that she looped neatly around her head. Tall and with impeccable carriage, she exuded authority. Her skin, devoid of even a touch of makeup, was clear and firm. Her eyes, a grayish blue, had a perpetually stern expression.
    Thirty years ago, when, as a shy, nearly forty-year-old assistant dean, Clayton had been courting her, he had lovingly compared Rachel to a Viking. “I can imagine you at the helm of a ship, armed for battle,with the wind blowing through your hair,” he had whispered.
    He now mentally referred to Rachel as “The Viking.” The name, however, was no longer an endearment. Clayton lived in a constant state of high alert, ever anxious to avoid his wife’s blistering wrath. When he nonetheless somehow provoked it, her caustic tongue lashed him mercilessly. Early in their marriage he had learned that she neither forgave nor forgot.
    Having been a guest at the Lawrence home hours before Martha disappeared seemed to him to be sufficient reason to pay a brief condolence call, but Clayton wisely did not make that suggestion. Instead, as they watched the eleven o’clock news broadcast, he listened in suffering silence to Rachel’s caustic comments.
    â€œIt’s very sad, of course, but at least this should put an end to that detective coming around here and annoying us,” she said.
    If anything, this will bring Duggan around more often, Clayton thought. A large man, with a leonine head of shaggy gray hair and knowing eyes, he looked the academic he had been.
    When, twelve years ago, at age fifty-five, he retired from the presidency of Enoch College, a small but prestigious institution in Ohio, he and Rachel had moved permanently to Spring Lake. He had first come to the town as a young boy, visiting an uncle who had moved there, and over the years he had come back for occasional visits. As a hobby, he had delved with enthusiasm into the history of thetown and was now known as the unofficial local historian.
    Rachel had become a volunteer at several local charities, where she was admired for her organizational abilities and energies, although no one particularly liked her. She had also made sure that everyone knew that her husband was a former college president, and that she herself was a graduate of Smith. “All the women in our family, starting with my grandmother, have been graduates of Smith,” she would explain. She had never forgiven Clayton for an indiscretion with a fellow professor three years after their marriage. Later, the mistake that had caused him to retire abruptly from Enoch College, a place where she had enjoyed the lifestyle, had permanently embittered her.
    As a picture of Martha Lawrence filled the television screen, Clayton Wilcox felt his hands go moist with fear. There had been someone else with long blond hair and an exquisite body. Now that Martha’s remains had been found, how intensely would the police probe into the backgrounds of the people who had been at the party that night? He swallowed over the dryness in his mouth and throat.
    â€œMartha Lawrence had been visiting her grandparents before returning to college,” the CBS anchorwoman, Dana Tyler, was saying.
    â€œI gave you my scarf to hold at the party,” Rachel complained for the millionth time. “And naturally, you managed to lose it.”

nine ________________
    T ODD, S CANLON, K LEIN AND T ODD, a nationally known criminal defense law firm located on Park Avenue South in Manhattan, had been founded by Walter Todd. As he put it, “Forty-five years ago I hung out a shingle in a storefront near the courthouse.