Before I Say Good-Bye (14 page)

Curtis Little stirred restlessly. “Peter, we are not prepared to provide funding for the building Adam Cauliff proposed to erect. It is imitative, pedantic, unexciting and a hodgepodge of architectural styles.”

“I happen to agree,” Lang said promptly. “Adam thought he could tie the sale of the property in to a contract for himself as architect. He thought we’d do anything to get our hands on the Kaplan parcel. He was mistaken. Which is what brings me to Ian Maxwell’s design. Several of my associates have worked with Ian in the past. At their suggestion, I called him.”

Peter leaned forward and pulled the cloth off the structure on the table, revealing a scale model of a building with a postmodern, art deco façade.

“Ian was in town two weeks ago. I took him to the site and explained the problem. This is a tentative idea of how he believes he can erect the kind of tower complex we want without using the Kaplan property Adam Cauliff owned. I conveyed to Adam last week the fact that we had developed an alternative plan.”

“Cauliff knew we weren’t going along with his proposal?” Little asked.

“Yes, he did. He’d opened his own office on the expectation that we couldn’t do without him, but he was wrong. I saw his wife—or widow, I should say—yesterday. I told her it was important that I see her on a business matter next week. At that time I’ll explain that we don’t need her parcel—let’s call it the Kaplan parcel for clarity—but that we’ll pay fair market value for it if she is willing to sell.”

“Then if she goes along . . .” Curtis Little began.

“If she goes along with us, Ian Maxwell will design our building with the tower to the side as we’d originally hoped to have it. Otherwise, as I explained to Adam, the tower will be in the rear of the structure, which will work perfectly well, if not
as
well.”

“Would Adam Cauliff have gone along with fair market value for the Kaplan property?” John Hilmer asked.

Peter Lang smiled. “Of course he would have. Adam had an inflated ego and an unrealistic opinion of his own potential, both as an architect and as a businessman, but he wasn’t stupid. That’s not to say that he was particularly happy that I offered to take the Kaplan site
off his hands for a modest profit. But I suggested to him that if he didn’t accept our proposal to sell, the best use of the property would be to donate it to the city for a pocket park.” He gave a thin, grim smile at his own joke.

Curtis Little was studying the scale model. “Peter, you
could
put the tower at the back of the structure, but you’d lose most of the aesthetic value of the building and a hell of a lot of rentable footage. I’m not at all sure that we’d be putting our money into it if that were the case.”

Peter Lang smiled. “Of course you wouldn’t. But Adam Cauliff didn’t know that. He was just a small-town guy playing in a league in which he didn’t belong. Trust me, he would have sold us the property—and at our price.”

John Hilmer, newly appointed as vice president in charge of venture capital and investment for Overland Bank, had himself come up the hard way. As he studied Peter Lang across the table, and thought about how he had been handed everything in life, he felt a growing distaste for the man.

A minor traffic accident had kept Lang from being killed in the fatal explosion of Cauliff’s boat. But not once in talking about the poor guy had Lang expressed even the slightest suggestion of regret that Adam Cauliff and three other people had lost their lives on that boat.

Lang is
still
furious that Adam Cauliff was shrewd enough to beat him to snapping up the Kaplan property, Hilmer thought. He had found a way to make Cauliff believe he could get his funding for the building without that parcel, and now that the guy is dead, he’s
licking his chops because he’s sure he’ll get the Kaplan property at his price.
Not
a nice guy, even in a hardball business.

As Hilmer got up to leave, another thought hit him. His son, a defensive tackle on his college football team, often came out of a game looking a heck of a lot worse than Peter Lang, who had tangled with a trailer truck.

twenty-nine

C
ARRYING HOT PASTRAMI SANDWICHES
and containers of steaming coffee, Jack Sclafani and George Brennan went back to Jack’s office after the memorial Mass. They ate quietly, both men deep in thought.

Then, in sync, they stuffed the aluminum foil, napkins and uneaten garlic pickles into the plastic lunch bags and tossed them in the wastebasket. As they sipped the last of the coffee, they looked at each other.

“What’s your take on the Widow Ryan?” Jack Brennan asked.

“Scared. Worried like crazy about something. She ran like a rabbit caught in Farmer McGregor’s cabbage patch when she saw us.”

“What’s she got to be afraid of?”

“Whatever it is, she wants to get it off her chest.”

Brennan smiled. “Catholic guilt? The need to confess?”

Both men were practicing Catholics, and they had long ago agreed that anyone raised Catholic had been bred to confess sins and ask forgiveness. They joked that sometimes it made their job easier.

Outside the church after the Mass, Jack Sclafani had been closer to Lisa Ryan than his partner when she looked past Nell MacDermott and saw him approaching. She was panicky, he thought. That was fear I saw in her eyes. I’d give a lot to know what she was saying—or, more likely,
would have said
—to the MacDermott woman if she hadn’t spotted us first. “I think we should pay her a visit,” he said slowly. “She knows something that scares her, and she doesn’t know what to do about it.”

“You think she may have some proof that her husband
did
cause that explosion?” Brennan asked.

“She has proof of
something.
Too soon to know what it is, though. Any report from Interpol on Kaplan?”

Brennan reached for the phone. “I’ll call downstairs and see if anything came in since I left.”

Jack Sclafani’s pulse quickened at the sudden tension he saw in Brennan’s face as he inquired about the Interpol response. He’s got something, Sclafani thought.

Brennan finished his call and replaced the receiver. “Just as we suspected, Kaplan has a rap sheet in Australia as long as the Barrier Reef. Most of it is petty stuff—except one conviction that put him away for a year. Now, get this: he was nabbed carrying explosives in the trunk of his car. He was working for a demolition company at the time and had stolen the explosives from the job site. Fortunately, they did catch him. But unfortunately, they never did find out what he intended to do with the stuff. They suspected that he’d been paid to blow up something, but they were never able to prove it.”

Brennan stood up. “I think it’s time to take another look at Kaplan, don’t you?”

“Search warrant?”

“You bet. With his record and his open hostility to Adam Cauliff, I think the judge will go along with it. We could have our search warrant later this afternoon.”

“I still want to talk to Lisa Ryan,” Jack Sclafani said. “Even if I saw Kaplan with a stick of dynamite in his hand, my hunch would still be that whatever is bugging
her
is the key to what happened on the boat that night.”

thirty

O
LD
W
OODS
M
ANOR
was only a few blocks off busy Route 287 in Westchester County, just north of New York City, but when Nell turned up the long driveway that led to the facility, the setting changed dramatically. All traces of suburbia disappeared. The handsome stone edifice ahead of her might have been the country residence of a wealthy landowner somewhere in England.

When her grandfather was a congressman, she had often accompanied him on fact-finding missions. At his side, she had observed the entire spectrum of nursing homes, from facilities that obviously should be closed, to modest but adequate extensions of small hospitals, to well-run, carefully planned—sometimes even luxurious—facilities.

As she parked her car, went inside and was greeted by a clerk in the expensively furnished reception room, her impression solidified that this place was the crème de la crème of assisted-living facilities.

An attractive woman who appeared to be in her early sixties escorted Nell to the elevator and rode with her to the second floor.

She introduced herself as Georgina Matthews. “I volunteer here a few afternoons a week,” she explained. “Mrs. Johnson is in suite 216. Her daughter’s death has been such a blow to her. We’re all trying to help her any way we can, but I warn you—she’s in an emotional state in which she’s angry at the world.”

Well, that makes two of us, Nell thought.

They got out of the elevator on the second floor and walked down the tastefully carpeted hallway. On the way, they passed several elderly people using walkers or in wheelchairs. Georgina Matthews had a smile or quick word for each of them.

With a practiced eye, Nell registered the fact that all of the elderly people she saw looked well cared for and exquisitely well groomed. “What is the ratio of attendants to residents?” she asked.

“A good question,” Matthews responded. “There are two for every three residents. Of course, that includes RNs and therapists.” She stopped. “This is Mrs. Johnson’s apartment. She’s expecting you.” She tapped on the door, then opened it.

Rhoda Johnson was resting in a recliner, her eyes closed, her feet up, a light blanket covering her. Her physical appearance surprised Nell. She appeared to be in her late seventies, a broad-shouldered woman with luxurious salt-and-pepper hair.

Nell was momentarily startled by the contrast between mother and daughter. Winifred had been painfully thin. Her hair had been straight and fine textured. Nell had expected that she would have resembled her mother. But obviously Rhoda Johnson had been fashioned from a different mold.

She opened her eyes as they entered the room, and she fixed her gaze on Nell. “They told me you were coming. I guess I should be grateful.”

“Now Mrs. Johnson,” Georgina Matthews cautioned.

Rhoda Johnson ignored her. “Winifred was doing just fine working at Walters and Arsdale all those years. They’d even given her enough of a raise so she could move me here. I hated the last nursing home. I told her over and over to stay put instead of going with your husband when he opened his own firm, but she wouldn’t listen. Well, was I right?”

“I’m very, very sorry about Winifred,” Nell said. “I know this is awful for you too. I wanted to see if I could help you in any way.” She could sense the quick side glance from Mrs. Matthews. She has to know about Adam, Nell thought, but they didn’t connect what happened to Winifred with me when I phoned.

In a gesture of spontaneous sympathy, Georgina Matthews touched Nell’s arm. “I didn’t realize,” she murmured. “I’ll leave you two to chat.” She turned to Rhoda Johnson. “You be nice.”

Nell waited until the door closed behind her. “Mrs. Johnson, I understand how sad and frightened you must feel. I feel the same way myself. That’s why I wanted to see you.”

She pulled a chair close and impulsively kissed Rhoda Johnson’s cheek. “If you’d rather, I won’t stay. I do understand,” she said.

“I guess it’s not your fault.” Mrs. Johnson’s tone was only mildly belligerent. “But why did your husband keep after Winifred to give up her job? Why didn’t he open his own place first, see if it worked out? Winifred had a good job with a good income and lots of security. Did she think of
me
when she took a chance and gave it up to work for your husband? No, she did
not.”

“Perhaps she had an insurance policy that might take care of your expenses here,” Nell suggested.

“If she did, she never told me. Winifred could be pretty closemouthed. How am I supposed to know about insurance?”

“Did Winifred have a safe-deposit box?”

“What would she have to put in it?”

Nell smiled. “Then where did she keep her personal records?”

“In her desk in her apartment, I believe. A good apartment, too. Still rent controlled. We lived there from the time she was in kindergarten. I’d be there now if it weren’t for the arthritis. I’m crippled with it.”

“Perhaps we could arrange for a neighbor to go through the desk for you and send up any papers.”

“I don’t want any neighbors going through my business.”

“Well, do you have a lawyer?” Nell asked.

“Why would I need a lawyer?” Rhoda Johnson looked intently at Nell, taking her measure. “Your grandfather is Cornelius MacDermott, isn’t he?”

“Yes, he is.”

“A good man, one of the few honest politicians in the country.”

“Thank you.”

“If I let you go into the apartment and look for any records, would he go with you?”

“If I asked him, he would. Yes.”

“When Winifred was a baby and we lived in his district, we voted for him. My husband thought he was tops.”

Rhoda Johnson began to cry. “I’m going to miss Winifred,” she said. “She was a good person. She didn’t deserve to die. She just didn’t have enough gumption—that was her problem, poor girl. Always trying to please people. Like me, she was never appreciated. Worked her fingers to the bone for that firm. At least they finally gave her the raise she deserved.”

Maybe, Nell thought. And maybe not. “I know my grandfather would go with me to your apartment, and if you can think of anything else you’d like us to bring to you, we’ll take care of that too.”

Rhoda Johnson fumbled in the pocket of her sweater for a handkerchief. Watching her, Nell realized for the first time that Mrs. Johnson’s fingers were almost deformed from arthritis. “There are some framed pictures,” she said. “Bring them along. Oh, and yes, would you see if you can find Winifred’s swimming medals? She took all the prizes when she was growing up. A coach told me that if she had stayed at it she could have been another Esther Williams. But with my arthritis getting the best of me, and her father out of the picture, I couldn’t have her running all over the country, could I?”

thirty-one

A
FTER
B
ONNIE
W
ILSON LEFT,
Gert agonized about how to tell Nell what she had just learned. How should she break the news to Nell that Adam was trying to contact her?—for Gert was certain that what Bonnie Wilson had told her was genuine. She knew that Nell would resist. She refuses to understand that some people have genuine psychic gifts, Gert thought, powers that they use to help other people. She’s also frightened of the fact that she has psychic gifts herself. And it’s no wonder, given all Cornelius’s talk of “flights of fantasy.”