The Lost Years (7 page)

“We also have a daughter who’s angry about her father’s relationship with his mistress and who probably has the guardianship of her mother in case of her father’s death,” Rita said. “And here’s another angle. If Jonathan Lyons had ever decided to divorce his wife, Kathleen, and marry Lillian Stewart, their assets would be split, and Mariah Lyons would have ended up with full responsibility for her mother.”

Simon Benet leaned back in his chair, pulled out his handkerchief, and mopped his brow. “Tomorrow morning, we’ll try to talk to the mother and to Mariah again. As we both know, most cases of this kind turn out to be family affairs.” He paused. “And let’s talk to somebody about getting the air-conditioning fixed!”

I
t was three o’clock when the funeral car deposited Mariah; her mother, Kathleen; and Rory back home after the luncheon at the Ridgewood Country Club.

As soon as they were inside the house, Rory said soothingly, “Now, Kathleen, you didn’t sleep well last night and you were up very early. Why don’t you get into something comfortable, then you can take a nap or watch television?”

Mariah realized she was holding her breath. Dear God, please don’t let Mom insist on going into the closet in Dad’s study, she thought. But to her relief, her mother willingly accompanied Rory up the stairs to her bedroom.

I honestly don’t know how I could have dealt with another scene right now, Mariah thought. I need some quiet time. I need to think. She waited until she was sure her mother and Rory would be in her mother’s bedroom with the door closed, then she hurried upstairs to her own room. She changed from her skirt and jacket into a cotton sweater, slacks, and sandals, and went back downstairs. She went into the kitchen, made a cup of tea, and carried it into the breakfast room. There she settled into one of the comfortable padded chairs and leaned back with a sigh.

Every bone in my body is aching, she thought as she took a sip of
tea and tried to focus on the events of the week. I feel as if everything that happened since I arrived here Monday evening is a blur.

Trying to think unemotionally, she began to relive that evening, starting with the arrival of the police. Mom was in such a state that they sent for an ambulance, she remembered. In the hospital I sat beside her bed all night. She was moaning and crying. I had blood all over my blouse from where I leaned over Dad and put my arms around him. The nurse was good enough to give me one of those cotton jackets the patients wear.

I wonder what happened to my blouse? Usually they hand your clothes back to you in a plastic bag when you leave a hospital, even if they’re soiled. I’m sure that the police kept it as evidence because it had blood on it.

It was just as well Mom wasn’t released until Tuesday evening because that way she didn’t see all of the police activity in the house. It had been declared a crime scene. They took Dad’s study apart. Betty told me that they were dusting everywhere for fingerprints. She said they were dusting all the downstairs windows as well as the doors. The bottom drawer of Dad’s desk, where he kept his gun, was open when I got home Monday night. But that drawer was always locked.

Mariah shook her head at the unwelcome memory that her mother was incredibly skilled at finding keys no matter where they had been hidden. Unwillingly, she thought of the incident last year when her mother had sneaked out of the house stark naked in the middle of the night. It was when the previous weekend caregiver was supposed to be taking care of her but had forgotten to put the alarm on in her mother’s room. It was small consolation to remind herself that the new weekend caregiver was excellent.

But Mom could never have walked into Dad’s study and used the key to open his desk drawer with him sitting there that evening, she thought.

That gun could have been somewhere else for months or even
years. I’m sure, or I think I’m sure, that Dad lost interest in going to the shooting range ages ago.

Even the warm cup she was cradling in her fingers could not prevent the chill that washed over Mariah’s body. He used to take Mom to the range with him, she thought. She wanted to see if she’d be any good. That was about ten years ago. He said she was a pretty good shot back then.

Trying to avoid the terrible implication of where that train of thought was going, Mariah forced herself to think about the conversation she’d had with Father Aiden just before they left the club. Dad went to see Father Aiden nine days ago and told him that he thought he had found the letter Jesus may have written to Joseph of Arimathea. Dad claimed he had confirmed the fact that it was the parchment stolen from the Vatican Library in the fourteen hundreds. Who was that expert who saw it? But wait a minute. Father Aiden said that Dad was troubled because
one
of the experts had been interested only in its financial value. If Father Aiden got it straight, that would mean that Dad showed it to more than one person.

Where is the parchment now? My God, is it here, in Dad’s files? I’ll have to look for it, but what good would that do? I wouldn’t recognize it among all the other parchments he was studying. But if Dad did have it and if Dad intended to return it to the Vatican Library, was it stolen after Dad was shot?

The ringing of the telephone in the kitchen made Mariah jump up and run to answer it. It was Detective Benet. He asked if he and Detective Rodriguez could drop over in the morning at about eleven o’clock and have a talk with Mariah and her mother.

“Of course,” she said.

Mariah realized that the reason she was whispering was because her throat had tightened so much that she could hardly speak the words.

L
loyd and Lisa Scott, a couple in their late fifties, had been next-door neighbors of Jonathan and Kathleen Lyons for twenty-five years. Lloyd was a successful criminal defense attorney, and Lisa, a former model, had turned her love for jewelry into a business. She made her own designs in crystal and semiprecious stones for a long list of private clients. Some of her designs were the products of her imagination. Others were inspired by the beautiful gems she had collected from all over the world. Her personal collection was now worth more than three million dollars.

With his balding head, prodigious girth, and pale blue eyes, Lloyd seemed an unlikely match for his beautiful wife. After thirty years of marital bliss he sometimes still woke up at night and wondered what she saw in him. His great pleasure was to indulge her love for what he jokingly called her trinkets.

Agreeing that it was a nuisance to keep going back and forth to the safety-deposit box at the bank, they had recently installed a supposedly burglar-proof safe bolted to the floor of Lisa’s dressing-room closet, as well as a state-of-the-art alarm system.

The Scotts kept a pied-à-terre in Manhattan for their occasional overnights in New York for business or social events. But as Lloyd’s reputation and income had continued to grow, neither one of them had any real interest in leaving the handsome brick and stucco
Tudor-style house that Lloyd had inherited from his mother. They liked their neighbors and the neighborhood. They had a view of the Ramapo Mountains from their back porch. They both were passionate travelers and preferred to spend their money on first-class accommodations all over the world, rather than on “McMansions or an oceanfront home in the Hamptons,” as Lloyd put it.

They were in Japan when they heard about Jonathan’s death and did not arrive home until the morning after the funeral. Knowing Kathleen’s condition so well, they both had been concerned that she might be involved in the tragedy.

As soon as they set down their bags in Mahwah that Saturday morning, they rushed next door. The bell was answered by a visibly distressed Mariah. She broke in on their attempts to offer condolences. “Two detectives are here,” she said. “They’re talking to Mom now. They called last night and asked to come and speak to us.”

“I don’t like that,” Lloyd snapped.

“It’s because she was alone with Dad that night…” Mariah’s voice trailed off as she tried to stay composed, but then she burst out, “Lloyd, it’s meaningless. Mom doesn’t even get it. She asked me why Dad didn’t come to breakfast this morning.”

Lisa looked at her husband. As she had expected, his face was settling into what she called his “take no prisoners” expression. Frowning slightly, his brow creased, his eyes narrowed behind his glasses, he said, “Mariah, this is my territory. I don’t want to butt in, but whether your mother understands what’s going on or not, she should not be answering questions from the police without legal counsel. Let me sit in with you and be sure we keep her protected.”

Lisa cupped Mariah’s face in her hands. “I’ll see you later,” she promised as she turned to go.

It was a hot day even for August. Back in the house Lisa lowered the temperature on the air conditioner and walked to the kitchen, glancing into the living room as she passed it. It was in perfect order
and the warm feeling that inevitably followed a vacation enveloped her. No matter how nice the trip was, and how much we enjoyed it, it’s always great to get home, she thought.

She made a decision not to nibble on anything. She’d skipped the breakfast snack on the plane, but she figured that when Lloyd got back they could have an early lunch. He’d be hungry too. Without looking, she knew the refrigerator had been stocked by their trusted housekeeper of twenty-five years. Again pushing back the urge to treat herself to something like a cracker and cheese, she retraced her steps to the foyer, picked up the carry-on bag that contained the jewelry she had traveled with, and went upstairs to the master bedroom.

She laid the bag on the bed, opened it, and removed the leather pouches containing the jewelry. At least this time I listened to Lloyd and didn’t bring as much as usual, she thought. But I sure wish I’d had the emeralds with me for the captain’s dinner on the ship.

Oh well.

She removed the rings and bracelets and earrings and necklaces from the pouches, spread them on the coverlet of the bed, and looked over them carefully, checking once again to be sure that everything she had taken with her had come back in the carry-on bag.

Then she transferred them to the tray on her vanity table, carried it into her dressing room, and opened the door of the closet. The steel safe, dark and formidable, was there. She tapped in the combination to unlock it and tugged at the door.

There were ten rows of drawers with various-shaped velvet-lined compartments. Lisa pulled out the top one, gasped, then frantically yanked out drawer after drawer. Instead of her beautiful and valuable jewelry sparkling up at her, she was staring at a sea of black velvet.

The safe was empty.