Before I Say Good-Bye (31 page)

“You have no idea where they came from?”

“No. But I think I can pinpoint when he did something to be given them. It was this past September 9th.”

“How can you be sure of that?”

“My daughter’s diary.” Lisa’s voice faltered. She twisted her hands together. “Oh, God, what am I doing?” she cried. “I
swore
to Kelly I’d never read her diary.”

She’s going to clam up again, Jack Sclafani thought. “Lisa,” he said, “you’re right that we’ve both got kids. We don’t want to hurt a child any more than you do. But please, tell us what she wrote that pertains to September 9th, and why you think it is important. After that, we’ll get out of here, I promise.”

At least for now, Brennan thought as he looked at his partner. Jack is good. He’s acting like Lisa Ryan’s big brother. What’s better is that he means it.

Lisa kept her head down as she spoke. “After reading the diary, I remembered that on Thursday, September 9th, Jimmy came home late. He was working at a site on the Upper West Side, at about One Hundredth Street. I think it was a renovation project on
an apartment building. Before he got home, I had a phone call from someone who asked to talk to Jimmy and said it was urgent, even wanted to know if he had a cell phone. Jimmy didn’t believe in those things. I asked if I could take a message.”

“Was it a man or a woman who called?”

“Man. He had a low, nervous voice.”

Lisa got up and walked to the window. “The message he asked me to give Jimmy was, ‘The job is canceled.’ I was so afraid it meant that Jimmy was out of work again. He finally got home around nine-thirty, and I told him about the call. He was terribly upset.”

“What do you mean by ‘upset’?”

“He turned almost ghostly pale and began sweating. Then he grabbed his chest. For a moment there, I thought he was having a heart attack. But then he pulled himself together and said that the owner had demanded some changes that he’d already made and now couldn’t undo.”

“Why do you remember this episode so clearly?”

“Only because of something Kelly wrote in her diary. At the time, I thought that Jimmy was just terrified that something would happen to make him lose the job. After that night, I didn’t think anything more about it. I remember that I went to bed about an hour after Jimmy got home. He said he wanted to have a beer and unwind, that he’d join me in a little while. Kelly wrote in her diary that she woke up and heard the television on. She went downstairs because she’d been asleep when Jimmy came home and she wanted to say good night to him.”

Lisa crossed to a desk and took a piece of paper out
of a drawer. “I copied this from her diary, dated September 9th.

“ ‘I sat on Daddy’s lap. He was so quiet. He was watching the news. Then, all of a sudden, he began to cry. I wanted to run and get Mommy, but he wouldn’t let me. Then he said that he was all right, and it was our secret that he felt sad. He said he was just tired out and had had a very bad day at work. He brought me back up to bed, and he went into the bathroom. I could hear him throwing up, so I guess he just had a flu bug or something.’ ”

Deliberately, Lisa folded and then tore up the paper she was holding. “I don’t know much about law, but I do know that in a court, this is not considered evidence. If you have any decency in you, you’ll never refer to it publicly. But I would suggest that whatever the job was that Jimmy described as ‘too late to cancel’ is at the center of this whole issue about the money and a payoff. I think the apartment building renovation Jimmy was working on last September 9th may need to be inspected.”

The detectives left a few minutes later. Once they were in the car, Sclafani said, “You’re thinking what I’m thinking?”

“You bet I am. We need to get a tape of all the September 9th late-night news broadcasts and see if there’s anything reported on one of them that might be connected to Jimmy Ryan’s big payoff.”

seventy-two

“M
S
. N
ELL
M
AC
D
ERMOTT
on the phone, sir.” The secretary’s voice was apologetic. “I told her you were not available, but she’s quite insistent that you accept her call. What shall I tell her?”

Peter Lang raised an eyebrow and thought for a second, looking across the desk at his corporation counsel, Louis Graymore, with whom he had been meeting. “I’ll take it,” he said.

His conversation with Nell was brief. When he replaced the receiver, he said, “That’s quite a surprise. She wants to see me immediately. How do you figure that one, Lou?”

“When you saw her the other day, didn’t you say she practically threw you out? What did you tell her?”

“I told her to come ahead. She’ll be here in about twenty minutes.”

“Want me to wait?”

“I don’t think that’s necessary.”

“I could gently remind her that your family has been supporting her grandfather’s campaigns since before either you or she was born,” the lawyer offered.

“I don’t think so. I tried a gentle hint that I’d be happy to support her candidacy if she runs for his seat. I never got the freeze so fast in my life.”

Graymore got up. Silver-haired and urbane, he had been chief legal advisor on real estate matters to Lang’s father, as well as to Peter. “If I may offer you a word of advice, Peter, you made a tactical mistake when you were less than honest about your proposed use of the
Kaplan parcel.” He paused. “With some people, straight talk works.”

Lou may be right, Peter thought as, not long after that, his secretary ushered Nell into his office. Though she was dressed casually, in a denim jacket and chinos, she had a bearing that bespoke class. He also found her very attractive, noticing the way loose tendrils of hair framed her face.

Even his most sophisticated visitors usually commented on the superb view and his exquisitely furnished office. He had the feeling that Nell, however, was totally unaware of any of it—the view, the furnishings, the expensive art on the walls.

With a nod, he indicated to his secretary that she should escort Nell to the chairs at the window that looked out toward the Hudson River.

“I have to talk to you,” Nell said abruptly as she sat down.

“That’s why you’re here, isn’t it?” he said, smiling.

Nell shook her head impatiently. “Peter, we don’t know each other well, but we have met any number of times over the years. I’m not interested in any of that now, though. What I
am
interested in is how well you knew my husband and why you lied to me the other day about your proposed use of the property Adam bought from the Kaplans.”

Lou was right on target, Peter Lang thought. Dissembling was not the way to go with this woman. “Nell, let me put it this way. I met Adam a number of times while he was with Walters and Arsdale. My firm has been involved in construction projects with that firm for many years.”

“Would you have called yourself Adam’s friend?”

“No. Frankly, I would not. I knew him—period.”

Nell nodded. “What did you think of him as an architect? The way you spoke the other day, one might have thought that the world had lost a genius.”

Lang smiled. “I don’t think I went
that
far, did I? What I was trying to convey was that we could not use his design for the Vandermeer project. Quite frankly, it was just a courtesy to you to suggest that we would have used it if he had lived. Since he obviously did not tell you that he was off the job, I saw no point in delivering that rather negative news after his death.”

“You also lied when you said you only wanted the property I now own for additional landscaping,” Nell said flatly.

Without responding, Lang went over to the wall and pushed a button. A hidden screen rolled down and was illuminated. On the screen was a panoramic view of Manhattan. In it, buildings and projects, numbered and outlined in blue, dotted the landscape from north to south, and from east to west. A gold-lettered legend on the right listed the names and locations of the various properties.

“The ones marked in blue are the Lang holdings in Manhattan, Nell. As I told the detectives, who all but accused me of setting the bomb that blew up Adam’s boat, I would like to acquire the Kaplan property because we now have a stunning design we’d like to go ahead with, but it is one that requires that extra bit of land.”

Nell walked over to the illustration he indicated and studied it closely. Then she nodded.

Peter Lang pushed the button that retracted the screen. “You’re absolutely right,” he said quietly. “I
wasn’t truthful with you, and for that I apologize. I would like to couple the Kaplan property with the Vandermeer land because my grandfather settled almost on that exact spot when he was an eighteen-year-old immigrant, just off the boat from Ireland. I would like to erect a magnificent tower of a building that would be a kind of monument to what three generations of Langs—my grandfather, my father and myself—have accomplished. To achieve that, in that particular spot, I need the Kaplan land.”

He looked directly at her. “However, if I don’t get it, I will move on. Another opportunity will present itself in that area, sooner or later.”

“Why didn’t you buy the Kaplan property yourself?”

“Because I had no use for it unless the landmark status was removed from the Vandermeer mansion, and when that happened, it was totally unexpected.”

“Then why do you think Adam bought it?”

“Either he had extraordinary foresight, or someone on the Board of Estimate spoke out of turn about the status of the mansion. And by the way, don’t think that isn’t being investigated.”

“I noticed that the Lang Tower was already listed as part of your landscape.” She pointed to the wall where the screen had been. “You must have been pretty sure you’d be able to build it in that location.”

“Pretty
hopeful,
Nell, not sure. In this business, you always assume you’re going to get what you go after. It doesn’t always turn out that way, of course, but real estate developers tend to be optimists.”

She had one more question before she left. “Do you know someone named Harry Reynolds?” Nell watched Peter Lang carefully, observing his reaction.

Lang looked puzzled, then his face brightened. “I knew a
Henry
Reynolds at Yale. He taught medieval history. But he died ten years ago. No one ever called him Harry. Why do you ask?”

Nell shrugged. “It’s not important.”

He walked with her to the elevator. “Nell, what you do with your property is up to you. I’m like a ballplayer who gets fired up when he goes to bat, but if he strikes out, he doesn’t waste too much time regretting it. If he wants to keep his batting average up, he starts thinking about his next time at the plate.”

“That’s not the tune you sang the other day.”

“Some things have changed since the other day. No piece of land is worth having the police questioning me as if I’m a murderer. Look, my offer to buy it is on the table. To show you I mean business, I’m taking my offer off the table as of Monday evening.”

Peter Lang, you do
not
get the Boy Scout award for sincerity, Nell thought as the elevator plunged from the penthouse to the lobby. You’ve got an almost maniacal ego. As far as that property goes, I don’t believe for a single minute that you’d walk away from it. In fact, I believe you want it so much it hurts. But that isn’t important, and it isn’t even the real reason I came here. I needed an answer, and I believe I have it.

In some deep part of her being, Nell was sure she now knew all she needed to know about Peter Lang. The sensation was akin to the certainty she felt the several times in her life she had heard her dead parents speak to her.

She was the only passenger in the elevator. As it rushed down, she said aloud, “Peter Lang, you
do not
have blood on your hands.”

seventy-three

D
AN
M
INOR BOTH ANTICIPATED
and dreaded checking his answering machine at the end of the day. For some reason, the very act of aggressively searching for his mother was accompanied by the feeling that if her whereabouts
were
discovered, the news would not be good.

When he arrived home on Thursday, the message he found waiting was from Mac: “Give me a call, Dan. It’s important.”

From the somber tone of Cornelius MacDermott’s voice, Dan knew that the search for Quinny was over.

He was a surgeon whose fingers held the most delicate instruments, whose slightest miscalculation could cost a life. But those fingers trembled as Dr. Dan Minor dialed Cornelius MacDermott’s office.

It was quarter of five, just the time Dan had told Mac he usually got home from the hospital. When the phone rang, Mac did not wait for Liz to put the call through but picked it up himself.

“I have your message, Mac.”

“There’s no easy way to say this, Dan. You’ll make the final identification in the morning, but the picture you gave me matches the picture they took of a homeless woman who died last September. The vital statistics are right, and pinned to her bra she had the same picture you carry.”

Dan swallowed over the choking lump that had formed in his throat.

“What happened to her?”

Cornelius MacDermott hesitated. He doesn’t have to know everything now, he thought. “The place where she was staying caught fire. She suffocated.”

“Suffocated!” Dear God, Dan thought, anguished. Couldn’t she have been spared that?

“Dan, I know how tough this is. Why don’t you meet me for dinner?”

It was an effort to speak. “No, Mac,” he managed to say. “I think I kind of need to be by myself tonight.”

“I understand. Then call me at nine o’clock tomorrow morning. I’ll meet you at the M.E.’s office. We’ll make the arrangements.”

“Where is she now?”

“Buried. In potter’s field.”

“They’re sure of the location where they put her body?”

“Yes. We can arrange to have it exhumed.”

“Thanks, Mac.”

Dan replaced the receiver, took out his wallet, threw it on the coffee table and sat down on the couch. From the wallet, he took the photo he had carried around with him ever since he was six years old. He propped the picture up.