Before I Say Goodbye Read online

  “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

  OLD WOODS MANOR 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

  AFTER BONNIE WILSON 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.”

  Gert’s eyes filled with tears as she remembered how ten-year-old Nell had sobbed in her arms: “Aunt Gert, Mommy and Daddy did so say good-bye to me. You know how Daddy always ran his fingers through my hair? I was at recess, and he came to me and did that. And then Mommy kissed me. I felt her kiss me. I started to cry. I knew then that they were gone. I knew it. But Grandpa says it didn’t happen. He says that I imagined it.”

  I asked Cornelius how he explained the fact that Nell had that experience at precisely the same moment her parents’ plane went off the radar screen, Gert thought. I asked him how he could be so certain that Nell only imagined a visit from her parents. His answer was that I was filling Nell’s head with nonsense.

  And, Gert thought, even before that terrible time, Nell had known when Madeline, her grandmother, had died. She was only four years old, but I was there when she came running downstairs. She was so happy because “Grammy” had come into her room during the night, and she thought that meant Grammy was home from the hospital. Typically, though, Cornelius had dismissed that as a dream as well.

  I wouldn’t dare let him know what Bonnie Wilson told me, Gert thought. Whether or not Nell talks to Bonnie herself, I’ll make her promise not to tell Mac about it, she vowed.

  At eight o’clock that evening, she called Nell. The answering machine was on and picked up after the third ring. She probably wants to be left alone tonight, Gert thought. She tried not to sound nervous when she left her message: “Nell, just anxious to see how you are,” she began. Then, after a moment of hesitation, she blurted out, “Nell, it’s very important that I talk to you. I—”

  She heard a click as the phone was picked up. “Aunt Gert, I’m here. Is something wrong?”

  From the thickness of her voice, Gert could sense that Nell had been crying. She threw caution to the winds: “Nell, there’s something I have to tell you. Bonnie Wilson, a psychic friend of mine, came to see me today. She puts people who have passed on in contact with their loved ones here.

  “Nell, I can refer you to people who have absolute faith in her. She is the real thing, I’m sure of it. When Bonnie was here today she told me that Adam has contacted her from the other side and wants to talk to you. Nell, please let me take you to see her.”

  She had rushed every word, anxious to get it out before either Nell hung up or she lost her courage and changed her mind about telling her grandniece about Bonnie’s visit.

  “Gert, I don’t believe in all that stuff,” Nell said softly. “You know that. I know that it means a lot to you, but it just doesn’t work for me. So please don’t bring it up again—especially not anything having to do with Adam.”

  Gert winced at the click as Nell broke the connection. She was tempted to redial Nell’s number and apologize for intruding in such a way, and at such a terrible time.

  What Gert did not know was that when Nell hung up the phone, she was trembling with fear and uncertainty.

  I happened to catch Bonnie Wilson on that bizarre television program last year, Nell thought, the one where they invited people to call in and test the psychic powers of the experts. Unless it was a complete sham, she was astonishing in the way she related to some people in the audience. Nell remembered in particular the vivid picture Bonnie had conjured up when the woman asked the psychic about her husband, who had died in an automobile accident.

  “You were waiting for him in the restaurant where you became engaged,” she had said. “It was your fifth wedding anniversary. He wants you to know he loves you and that he’s happy, even though he feels cheated of all the years he’d hoped to spend with you.”

  Dear God, Nell thought, is it possible that Adam really is trying to reach me? I know that Mac hates for me to talk of it, but I do believe that the dead have a real presence in our lives. After all, I know that Mom and Dad came to say good-bye to me when they died, and I know they were with me, guiding me to safety when I almost drowned in Hawaii. Why, then, should it be so improbable for Adam to try to reach me now? And why did he contact someone else instead of coming directly to me as Mom and Dad and Grammy did?

  Nell looked at the phone, struggling to resist the urge to call Gert and confess to her just how confused she was.

  thirty-two

  BY THE TIME he had returned home after his daily run in Central Park, a sense of unease had replaced Dan Minor’s previous feeling of euphoria. He admitted to himself that it was grasping at straws to hope that he would spot his mother, Quinny, as Lilly Brown had called her, sitting on a park bench, or that Lilly would phone one day soon and say, “She’s here in the shelter.”

  A long shower, however, helped to revive his spirits somewhat. He dressed in chinos, a sport shirt and loafers and went to the bar refrigerator. He wasn’t sure yet where he wanted to have dinner, but he did know a glass of chardonnay with cheese and crackers was in order.

  He settled on the couch in the sitting area of the spacious, high-ceilinged room, deciding that after three and a half months the place was finally beginning to shape up. Why do I feel so much more at home in a condo in Manhattan than I ever did living on Cathedral Parkway in Washington? he asked himself, although he knew the answer.

  Some of Quinny’s genes, he guessed. His mother had been born in Manhattan, and according to Lilly Brown New York City was “her favorite place in the world,” although his grandparents moved back to Maryland when she was about twelve.

  How much of her do I actually remember, and how much of what I know of her comes from the things I have heard about her? Dan asked himself.

  He knew that his father had fallen in love with another woman when Dan was three years old, so he had no memory of ever living with him. The only really positive thing I can say about dear old Dad, Dan thought, is that he didn’t fight for custody of me after Mom disappeared.

  He knew his grandparents despised his father, but they had been careful not to show that to him when he was growing up. “Unfortunately, a lot of marriages break up, Dan,” they told him. “The one who doesn’t want the marriage to end can be badly hurt. After a while, people get over the pain. In time, I’m sure, your mother would have gotten over the divorce, but she couldn’t get over what happened to you.”

  Why do I think that after all these years my mother and I could have any kind of relationship? Dan asked himself.

  But we could, he thought. I know we could. The private investigator they had sent to find her after they glimpsed her on that television documentary had been able to glean some information about her. “She’s worked as an aide to old people,” he told them, “and apparently she is very good at it. But when depression hits her, she starts drinking again, and then it’s back to the streets.”

  The investigator had found a social worker who reported once having a long talk with Quinny. Now, as he sipped his wine, Dan mulled over one thing in particular that social worker said: “I asked Quinny what she would like most to have in this life. She looked at me for what seemed like a long time, then whispered, ‘Redemption.’ ”

  The word echoed in his mind.

  The phone rang. Dan wa
lked over to it and checked the Caller ID. His eyebrows raised when he saw that the call was from Penny Maynard, the fashion designer who lived on the fourth floor of his loft building. They had chatted a few times in the elevator. She was about his own age and sleekly attractive. He had been tempted to ask her out, but then decided he didn’t want to have any kind of close friendship with someone he would be seeing regularly in the elevator.

  He decided to let the answering machine take a message.

  The machine clicked on. “Dan,” Penny said firmly. “I know you’re home. A couple of the other people in the building dropped by, and we all agreed it was time we got to know our resident pediatrician. So come on up and join us. You don’t have to stay more than twenty minutes, unless, of course, you decide to partake of one of my thrown-together pasta suppers.”

  In the background, Dan could hear murmured conversation. Suddenly heartened at the prospect of being with other people, he picked up the phone. “I’d be delighted to come,” he said.

  Finding the people at Penny’s gathering to be pleasant, and feeling relaxed and cheered, he stayed for the pasta and got back to his loft just in time to catch the ten o’clock news. There was a brief segment covering the memorial Mass for Adam Cauliff, the architect who had been killed in the boating accident in New York harbor.

  Rosanna Scotto of Fox News was reporting: “The explosion that killed Cauliff and three others continues to be under investigation. Former congressman Cornelius MacDermott is escorting Adam Cauliff’s widow, his granddaughter, Nell, from the church. Rumors are rampant that Nell MacDermott may run for the congressional seat her grandfather held for almost fifty years, since Bob Gorman, the incumbent, is believed to be retiring from public life.”