Nighttime Is My Time: A Novel (28 page)

***

Duke Mackenzie watched intently as Jean Sheridan left his shop. She looked pretty glum when she came in, he thought, but from the way she looked after she got that phone call, you'd think she won the lottery. What the heck did she mean when she asked what her daughter's name is?

He watched from the window as Jean began to walk up Mountain Road. If she hadn't left so fast, he'd have asked her about that fellow with the dark glasses and cap who had been coming in the last couple of mornings, right after they opened at six o'clock. He always ordered the same thing—juice, a buttered roll, and coffee to go. When he got back in his car, he drove up Mountain Road. Last night he came in again, just before closing time, and ordered a sandwich and coffee.

That guy's a funny duck, Duke thought as he wiped the already spotless counter. I asked him if he was part of the Stonecroft reunion, and he gave me a wise guy answer. He said, "I
am
the reunion."

Duke ran the sponge under hot water and squeezed it. Maybe, tomorrow, if he comes in, I'll tell Sue to wait on him, and I'll sit in the car and follow to see who he's visiting on Mountain Road, he thought. I wonder if it's Margaret Mills. She's been divorced for a couple of years, and everyone knows she's looking for a boyfriend. Won't hurt to check it out.

Duke poured a cup of coffee for himself. Lots going on around here since those reunion people showed up last week, he thought. If that quiet guy stops in tonight for a sandwich and coffee, I'll ask him about the gal who was just here. I mean she's from the reunion and she's really attractive so he must at least know who she is. It's crazy that she had to be told her own daughter's name. Maybe he knows what's up with her.

Duke chuckled as he downed another swig of coffee. Sue was always telling him that curiosity killed the cat. I'm not curious, Duke reassured himself. I just like to know what's going on.

68

At twelve o'clock Sam Deegan tapped on the door of the district attorney's office and walked in without waiting for a response.

Rich Stevens was poring over notes on his desk and looked up, his expression showing irritation at the abrupt interruption.

"Rich, sorry to barge in, but this is important," Sam told him. "We're making a big mistake if we don't take the threat to Jean Sheridan's daughter seriously. I had a message to call Craig Michaelson, the lawyer who handled the adoption. We just connected. Michaelson has been in touch with the adoptive parents. The father is a three-star general at the Pentagon. The girl is a second-year cadet at West Point. The General called her and asked if she had ever met Laura Wilcox. The answer is absolutely not. And she doesn't remember where she lost the hairbrush."

There wasn't a trace of annoyance left in Rich Stevens' expression as he leaned back in his chair and entwined his fingers, always a sign to those who knew him that he was deeply concerned.

"That's all we need," he said, "to have the daughter of a three-star general being threatened by some nut. Are they putting a bodyguard on the girl at the Point?"

"From what Michaelson tells me, she has two big exams, one tomorrow, one Friday. She laughed at the suggestion that she'd leave the grounds. The father didn't want to upset her by telling her about these threats. He and the mother are flying up tomorrow to meet Jean Sheridan. The General wants to come in here and talk to you Friday morning."

"Who is he?"

"Michaelson didn't want to give that information over the phone. The girl knows she's adopted, but until this morning the General and his wife had no idea of the identity of the natural parents. Jean Sheridan swears she never told anybody about the baby until she started getting the faxes. I say whoever found out about the baby and knew who had adopted her, learned it at the time she was born. Michaelson is sure his records were never seen by anyone. Jean Sheridan suspects the leak occurred in the doctor's office where she was a maternity patient, which at least gives us a starting point in trying to figure out who might have had access to the records."

"Then if Laura Wilcox isn't involved in the threats and didn't send that last fax apologizing for them, I've stuck my neck out by calling her disappearance a publicity stunt," Rich Stevens said bitterly.

"We can't be sure about that part of it yet, Rich, but we can be pretty damn sure that she's not the one threatening the girl. Which raises the question, if Laura
didn't
send that fax, was it sent to make us drop the investigation?"

"Which is what I told you to do. All right, Sam. I'll pull you off the homicides. I wish we knew the name of the cadet. I'll ask you again: Is the General
positive
that she's safe?"

"According to Michaelson, she is because of the tests. He says that if she's not in class, she's studying in her room. She assured her father she wouldn't leave the West Point campus."

"Then with all the security at West Point, she should be all right, at least for the present. That's a relief."

"I'm not so sure about that. Being on the grounds of West Point didn't save her natural father's life," Sam said grimly. "He was a cadet. Two weeks before graduation he was the victim of a hit-and-run driver. They never found the person who killed him."

"Any question that it wasn't an accident?" Stevens asked sharply.

"From what Jean Sheridan tells me, it never occurred to anyone that Reed Thornton—that was his name—was deliberately run down. They believed the driver panicked and then was afraid to turn himself in. But in light of all that's been happening, it wouldn't be a bad idea to look at the file on that case."

"Run with it, Sam. God Almighty, can you just see what the media will do if they ever get their hands on this? Three-star general's daughter, a West Point cadet, threatened. Her natural father, a cadet, died in a mysterious accident at the Point. Her natural mother is an acclaimed historian and a best-selling author."

"There's more," Sam said. "Reed Thornton's father is a retired brigadier general. He still doesn't know he has a granddaughter."

"Sam, I'll ask you one more time: Are you sure, are you positive that the girl is safe?"

"I have to accept the fact that her adopted father is satisfied that she's safe."

As Sam got up, he noticed a pile of notes on Rich Stevens' desk. "More tips about the homicides?"

"Sam, in the couple of hours you've been out, I've lost count of how many calls have poured in about suspicious-looking men. One of them came from a woman who swore she'd been followed out of the supermarket. She got the guy's license plate number. The suspect turned out to be an FBI agent who's visiting his mother. We've had two calls about strange cars in schoolyards. Both of them turned out to be fathers waiting for their kids. We have a nut who confessed to the murders. The only problem is he's been in jail for the last month."

"Any psychics call yet?"

"Oh, sure. Three of them."

The phone on Stevens' desk rang. He picked it up, listened, then put his hand over the speaker. "I'm holding for the governor," he said, raising his eyebrows.

As Sam left the room, he heard the district attorney saying, "Good morning, Governor. Yes, it is a very serious problem, but we're working round the clock to…"

To find the perpetrator and bring him to justice, Sam thought. Let's hope that happens before any more pewter owls get planted on dead women.

Including a nineteen-year-old West Point cadet—
that chilling possibility darted through his mind as he walked down the corridor to his own office.

69

Lily… Meredith. Lily… Meredith," Jean whispered over and over as she walked up Mountain Road, her hands in her pockets, her sunglasses hiding the tears of happiness she could not stop shedding.

She wasn't sure why she had wandered up that street except that when she rushed out of the coffee shop, she knew she wasn't ready to go back to the hotel. She passed houses that had belonged to neighbors years ago. How many of them still live here? she wondered. I just hope I don't run into anyone I know.

She slowed her step as she came near the house she had lived in. When she had driven by on Sunday morning, she hadn't had the chance to really study what the present owners had done with it. She glanced around. There was no one on the street to observe her. For a moment she stopped and put her hand on the split rail fence that now enclosed the property.

They must have added at least two more bedrooms when they renovated, she decided as she studied the house. When we lived here, there were only three bedrooms, one for each of us—Mother, Dad, and me. When we were kids, Laura used to ask me about that: "Don't your mother and father sleep together? Don't they
like
each other?"

I had read in an advice column in one of those women's magazines that no woman should have to sleep in the same room with her husband if he snored a lot. I told Laura my father snored a lot. She said, "So does mine, but they still sleep together."

I said, "Well, mine do, too, sometimes." But they didn't.

Now she looked up at the second floor at the two center windows. Those are the windows of my room, Jean thought. God, how I hated the flowered wallpaper. It was so busy. When I was fifteen, I begged Dad to cover the walls with bookshelves. He really was handy with projects like that. Mother objected, but he did it anyhow. After that, I called my room the library.

I remember the first day I was sure that my period was late and the days that followed when I prayed it would come. I promised God I'd do anything He wanted if I could just not be pregnant.

Well, now I'm glad I was, Jean thought fiercely. Lily… Meredith. I may meet her as soon as this weekend. At some point I'll probably slip and call her Lily, then have to explain, although maybe by then she'll understand. I wonder how tall she is. Reed was over six feet, and he told me that his father and grandfather were taller than he was.

Lily is safe—that is absolutely the most important thing in the world. But Craig Michaelson is sure that she never met Laura. So how would Laura know about the faxes?

Jean had intended to turn and start back to the Glen-Ridge but instead impulsively walked past her old house, up to Laura's former home. She stopped and stood in front of it.

As she had observed from the car on Sunday morning, the house and grounds were being maintained regularly. The house looked freshly painted, the flagstone walk was bordered with autumn flowers, and the lawn was swept free of leaves. Even so, with the shades drawn in every window, the house had a closed, unwelcoming look. Why would anyone buy a house, renovate it, keep it up, and not enjoy living in it? Jean wondered. She had heard a rumor that Jack

Emerson owned it. He's supposed to be quite the ladies' man. I wonder if he's kept it as a love nest for his girlfriends. If he does own it, now that his wife has moved to Connecticut, it would be interesting to see if he still needs it.

Not that I care, God knows, Jean thought as she turned and started back to the hotel. With a conscious effort she tried to put her anticipation about meeting Lily aside and concentrate on Laura and the new scenario that had been evolving in her mind.

Robby Brent.

Had Robby Brent been behind the faxes about Lily? she asked herself, trying to reason through that scenario. Maybe he's the one who found out I was pregnant. Maybe now he realizes that he could be prosecuted for sending those threats and wants Laura to take the blame because he suspects I would feel sorry for her.

It's possible, Jean decided as she passed the delicatessen and reluctantly waved to Duke, who was tapping on the window and waving at her. Robby Brent is just nasty enough to have somehow found out about Lily, and then, when the reunion came up, have sent those faxes as a cruel joke. I understand that he does a couple of benefits a year. It's possible he met Lily's family that way. Look how rotten he was, the way he ridiculed Dr. Downes and Miss Bender at the dinner. Even the way he presented his check to Stonecroft was an insult.

It was a scenario that made sense to her. If Robby sent those faxes and the hairbrush, he had to be worried about criminal prosecution, she reasoned. If he planned the publicity stunt with Laura, then that has backfired. In that case, he probably will be in touch with his producers to figure out a story. The media are going to hound them for an explanation.

On the other hand, Jack Emerson worked evenings in Dr. Connors' office and might have gotten into his files. Besides that, I need to know why Mark asked the clerk about my receiving a fax and then was disappointed to learn I didn't get one. Well, at least I can find that out fast enough, Jean thought as she turned onto the walkway that led to the Glen-Ridge.

When she stepped into the lobby, the warmth inside enveloped her, and she realized that she had been shivering. I ought to go up and soak in the tub, she reflected. Instead, she went to the front desk where a now busy Amy Sachs was checking in the early arrivals of the Starbright Electrical Fixtures Company event. She picked up the in-house phone, but when the customer Amy was waiting on was searching in his bag for his wallet, Jean managed to catch the clerk's eye and ask, "Any mail?"

"Not a bit," Amy whispered. "You can count on me, Dr. Sheridan. No more mistakes with your faxes."

Jean nodded as she gave the operator Mark's name. He answered on the first ring. "Jean, I was worried about you," he said.