Before I Say Goodbye Read online

  The skeptics say that these people who claim to have psychic powers are just making lucky guesses, based on information they have been clever enough to trick the subject into revealing. Well, I admit to being a skeptic, Nell thought, but I confess that if Bonnie Wilson is a trickster, then she’s fooled me too.

  Do the people who claim to be in touch with the dead really just make lucky guesses? she wondered. Bonnie Wilson could not have guessed everything she told that woman that day Nell had watched her on television. But what about synchronicity? Nell wondered. That’s what they call it when you’re thinking of someone and a minute later that person calls you. It’s as though one person is sending a fax, and the other is receiving it. They’re in synch.

  That would go a long way toward explaining the phenomenon she had seen when watching Bonnie Wilson. Maybe the psychics who claim to be in touch with the dead are actually fax machines for the thoughts of the people who consult them, she decided.

  Oh, Adam, why did I tell you not to come home that day? Nell agonized. If only I hadn’t done that, would I be able to accept that you’re gone?

  But even if we had never had that misunderstanding, your death would have left so many questions unanswered. Who did this to you, Adam? And why?

  I thought poor Winifred had a crush on you, but now I know that there was someone else in her life. I’m glad I learned that, and I hope that she knew what it was to be loved.

  Mac is so worried that your name is going to be dragged into the bribery and bid-rigging inquiry that is going on at Walters and Arsdale. Even though these things may have been going on while you were there, is it fair that they blame everything on you now, when you’re not here to defend yourself?

  You worked for Walters and Arsdale for over two years, yet neither one of the principal partners came to your memorial Mass. I know they were furious with you because you bought the Kaplan property and then left them to open your own firm. But wasn’t that just ambition on your part? I was raised to believe that ambition was good, Nell thought.

  Was the person who blew up your boat someone who wanted you out of the way? Were you the target? Or was it Sam Krause? Or maybe Winifred? Jimmy Ryan’s widow started to talk to me after the Mass, but then something made her run away. Was she about to tell me something I should know about the meeting on the boat? Could Jimmy Ryan have been the one who knew something dangerous to someone else? Could he have been the target?

  That last morning, Adam had said there were different degrees of honesty in the construction business. What had he meant by that? Nell wondered.

  For most of Saturday night Nell lay sleepless. I feel as though at any moment Adam might come in, she thought. Finally she dozed off, but she awoke again at six. It was going to be another beautiful June morning. She showered and dressed and went to the seven o’clock Mass.

  “May Adam’s soul and the souls of the faithful departed rest in peace . . .” Her prayer was the same as the week before. And it would be the same for many Sundays to come. She had to find some answers, some explanation to all that had happened.

  But if Adam is trying to get in touch with me, Nell thought, there must be some reason why he can’t find rest.

  She thought of the teachings of the Church. The Curé of Ars, who is the patron saint of priests, was said to have a remarkable understanding of the afterlife. Padre Pio was a mystic.

  I don’t know what to believe, Nell thought.

  On the way home from Mass, she stopped to buy a bagel. It was still hot from the oven. I love New York on Sunday morning, she thought as she walked down Lexington Avenue. On mornings such as this, it’s like a small town just waking up. The streets are empty and quiet.

  This part of Manhattan had been Mac’s electoral district, his streets. Will it be my district, my streets? she wondered with a quickened heartbeat.

  Without Adam there would be no more agonizing about running for office.

  She hated the realization that, for a brief instant, she felt a flicker of relief, knowing that at least that problem no longer existed.

  forty

  PETER LANG spent the weekend alone in Southampton, having turned down the half-dozen invitations he’d had from friends to join them for golf or cocktails or dinner. All his energy and thoughts were concentrated on the situation he faced in financing his projected new Vandermeer project, and his now compelling need to have Nell MacDermott sell to him the parcel of land her husband had bought from the Kaplan woman.

  I never considered that there was even a prayer of getting the Board of Estimate to overturn the designation of the Vandermeer mansion as a landmark, he thought, berating himself for such a careless miscalculation. Then, when it was in the air that that was going to happen, it was too late—Cauliff had beaten him to Ada Kaplan.

  Without the Kaplan parcel, the complex they could erect would be serviceable, but nothing special. With it, however, he could finally be the force behind the creation of a masterpiece of architecture, a grand addition to the Manhattan skyline.

  He had never put the Lang name on one of his buildings. He had waited, knowing that eventually he would find the perfect combination of location and design worthy of carrying his family’s name. The result would be a building that would stand as a monument to three generations of Langs.

  As he had feared, when he approached Adam Cauliff with an offer to buy the Kaplan property from him, Cauliff had told him in so many words that he would see him in hell before he sold that parcel to him, thus the forced partnership.

  Well, it looks like Adam will be showing up in hell before me, Peter thought with grim satisfaction.

  And now he had to figure out the best way to deal with Cauliff’s widow and to convince her to sell him that property. He had learned enough about her to know that at least for the immediate future she could not be induced to sell the parcel out of need—she seemed to be financially well off on her own, independent of her late husband. He had one card up his sleeve, however, one trump he could play that was almost guaranteed to carry the day.

  It was an open secret that Cornelius MacDermott had been intensely disappointed that his granddaughter hadn’t run for his congressional seat when he retired two years ago.

  She has the credentials, Peter Lang mused as, late Sunday afternoon, he walked down the flower-bordered path that led from his house to the ocean. Too bad she didn’t run last time, he thought. Gorman was a waste, and if he does quit, she’s going to have to work to get back voters who were dissatisfied by his performance.

  Nell MacDermott is a chip off the old block, though, and like her grandfather, she’s politically very savvy. She’s also smart enough to know that I can do a lot to help her get elected, and that it would be wise to get me on her side. Not only can I help her, I suspect that when the courts start looking into some of the practices Adam was involved in, she’ll be begging me to come to her aid as a defender of her husband’s character.

  Peter Lang dropped the towel he was carrying, and with long, decisive strides raced through the breaking surf and threw himself into the Atlantic.

  The water was numbingly cold, but once he had gone a few yards his body began to adjust. As he swam with swift, expert strokes, Lang thought about his missed date with destiny, and wondered if Adam Cauliff had still been alive and aware of what was happening when the water closed over him after the boat exploded.

  forty-one

  BONNIE WILSON had told Gert to call her at any time if Nell MacDermott decided that she wanted a consultation. She fully understood that even if Nell were anxious to see her, she still might hesitate. As a popular newspaper columnist, with high public visibility, to be known to be consulting a psychic might bring her more publicity than she wanted. And there was also talk of her possibly running for Congress—the press was always looking for ways to discredit a candidate, so any hint of a visit with a noted psychic such as Bonnie might well be used against her.

  The media had scoffed at the report that Hillary Clinton had used a m
edium in an effort to contact Eleanor Roosevelt, and Nancy Reagan had been endlessly criticized for consulting an astrologer.

  But then on Sunday evening, at ten o’clock, Bonnie received the call from Gert MacDermott that she had hoped for. “Nell would like to meet you,” Gert said, her voice subdued.

  “Something’s wrong, Gert. I don’t have to be a psychic to hear the stress in your voice.”

  “Oh, I’m afraid my brother is terribly upset with me. He took Nell and me to dinner tonight, and I let slip that you and I talked, and I even said a little about what you had told me. Then he got all riled up and made the mistake of forbidding Nell to see you.”

  “Which of course means that she is going to see me.”

  “Maybe she would have anyhow,” Gert said, “although I don’t think even she is sure of that. But now she absolutely wants to consult you, and she wants to do it as soon as possible.”

  “Fine, Gert. Ask her to be here tomorrow at three.”

  Monday, June 19

  forty-two

  THE SALON WAS CLOSED TODAY; it was always closed on Mondays. In a way, Lisa Ryan was grateful for the extra day; it gave her a little more time to get herself emotionally prepared to go back and face the world. In another way, she wished she were already back at work. She dreaded getting through that first week, when all her steady clients would express their sympathy and then want to hear the inside details of the explosion that had taken Jimmy’s life.

  Many of them had come to the funeral parlor. Others had sent flowers and notes of sympathy.

  Lisa knew, though, that the novelty of the event was already over, at least for everyone but her. By now, all of her clients were going about their own lives, only fleetingly conscious of Lisa’s loss. Maybe for a while each of them would remain grateful that she could anticipate the sound of her own husband’s car pulling into the driveway at night. Soon, though, that too would become routine. Oh, they were all sorry for her, genuinely sorry, but each of them was also happy not to be the one receiving the sympathy.

  Lisa had felt that way herself, last year, when the husband of one of her clients had been killed in a traffic accident.

  She had talked about that to Jimmy at the time. I’ll never forget what he said, Lisa thought: “Lissy, we’re all a little superstitious. We all have a feeling that if something terrible happens to someone else, it may satisfy the gods for a time and they’ll leave us alone.”

  BY NINE O’CLOCK she had straightened up the house. There were still plenty of notes from friends and well-wishers to answer, but Lisa simply could not make herself get into them now.

  So many old friends who had moved away from the area had written to express shock and sorrow. One of her favorite notes was from a guy she and Jimmy had grown up with who was now a big shot at a movie studio in Hollywood.

  “I remember Jimmy when we were in the seventh grade,” he wrote. “We once had one of those science-project assignments that, as a parent, I now know teachers give just to cause trouble in the family. The night before the projects were due, I still hadn’t done mine, but as usual Jimmy had his own all worked out and was willing to lend me a hand as well. He came over and helped me put together a Lego bridge and then to write a composition on why it had a degree of sway built into it. He was one terrific guy.”

  And I almost handed his good reputation to a cop, Lisa thought, remembering the Friday visit from Detective Sclafani. But not telling about the money didn’t solve the problem—she still had to return it. She knew with absolute certainty that Jimmy hadn’t taken the money willingly; she knew without a doubt that he had been forced to accept it. There simply was no other explanation. Jimmy had been given a choice of losing his job or closing his eyes to something wrong on the job site. Then he’d been forced to accept money he didn’t want—that way they would have a hold over him.

  Even though she didn’t really know her, Lisa sensed that Nell MacDermott was someone she could trust. She also thought that Nell might know something about whatever it was Jimmy was working on. After all, it was someone from Nell’s husband’s firm who had called Jimmy in for an interview in the first place, then had passed his application along to Sam Krause Construction. What began as an apparent act of kindness, had ended up with Jimmy dead.

  Somehow the money in that box was tied to it all. And even though she needed it—needed it to pay the bills and to keep food on the table—she knew she could never spend a penny of it. It was tainted, soiled now with Jimmy’s blood.

  AT TEN O’CLOCK, Lisa tried to phone Nell MacDermott. She knew that Nell lived in Manhattan, somewhere on the East Side, in the Seventies. Her phone, however, proved to be unlisted.

  Then Lisa remembered reading in the newspaper that Nell’s grandfather, former congressman Cornelius MacDermott, now had a consulting firm. Getting that number from information, she decided to call there; maybe someone would be able, and willing, to put her in touch with Nell.

  Almost immediately, she was put through to a pleasant-voiced lady who said she was Liz Hanley, former congressman MacDermott’s assistant.

  Lisa made it simple: “My name is Lisa Ryan. I’m Jimmy Ryan’s widow. I must speak to Nell MacDermott.”

  Liz Hanley asked her if she could put her on hold. Two minutes later Liz was back on the line. “If you call right away, you can reach Nell at 212-555-6784. She’s expecting your call.”

  Lisa thanked her, broke the connection and immediately dialed the number. The call was answered on the first ring. Five minutes later, at twenty past ten, Lisa Ryan was on her way to meet Nell MacDermott, the other woman made a widow by the boat explosion.

  forty-three

  DURING HIS THIRTY-EIGHT YEARS OF LIFE, Jed Kaplan had been in trouble with the law enough to know when he was under surveillance. He had developed a kind of sixth sense about having somebody on his tail.

  I can smell a cop two miles away, he thought bitterly that Monday morning, as he slammed out of the apartment house and began walking downtown. Hope you got comfortable shoes on. We’re going to take one of our nice long walks.

  Jed wanted to get out of New York. He couldn’t stand living with his mother another minute. When he woke up an hour ago, his back felt almost paralyzed from sleeping on the crummy mattress of that lousy sofa bed. Then he had gone into the kitchen to get a cup of coffee and found his mother sitting at the table, crying her eyes out.

  “Your father would have been eighty years old today,” she told him, her voice breaking. “If he were still alive, I’d be having a party for him. Instead, I’m in here, alone, hiding, ashamed to look any of my neighbors in the face.”

  Jed had tried to dismiss her concerns, asserting his innocence once more. There’d been no shutting her up, however, and she had continued on in the same vein.

  “You remember seeing old movies with Edward G. Robinson in them, don’t you?” she said. “When his wife died, the only thing she left their son was his highchair. She said the only time he’d ever given her happiness was when he sat in it.”

  Then she shook her fist at him. “I could say the same about you, Jed. Your behavior is a disgrace to me. You disgrace your father’s memory.”

  He had taken all he could stand and quickly left the apartment and its feeling of hopeless claustrophobia. He had to get away, but to do that he needed his passport. The cops knew that the trumped-up charge on the grass they found in his duffle bag would be thrown out of court, so they had confiscated his passport, just to make sure he didn’t go anywhere.

  I never admitted that grass was mine, Jed thought, congratulating himself. I told them truthfully that I hadn’t touched that bag in five years.

  But even after that charge was dropped, he wouldn’t be out of trouble with the cops. They’d cook up something else to force him to hang around.

  The trouble is, Jed thought, as he stopped for coffee at a deli on Broadway, the one tip I could give the cops also could be used to help them nail me for the explosion.

  forty-four


  “I’M SORRY I’M LATE,” Lisa Ryan apologized to Nell as she was shown into the apartment. “I should have known I wouldn’t be able to find a parking spot. I finally ended up going into a garage.”

  She hoped she didn’t sound as nervous and flustered as she felt. Manhattan traffic always unnerved her, and then having to put the car in a garage—at so much expense; the minimum charge was twenty-five dollars—had left her both irritated and disoriented.

  Twenty-five dollars was an awful lot of money to Lisa, an amount equal to the tips she would receive for doing between five and eight manicures. All that money wasted just to keep a ten-year-old car off the streets—if it hadn’t been so important that she see Nell MacDermott, she might have just driven right back to Queens.

  When she left the garage and was walking toward the apartment building, she had felt tears of frustration welling behind her eyes, forcing her to stop and fish for a handkerchief to wipe them away. She refused to make a spectacle of herself on the streets of Manhattan.

  Always before, Lisa had felt well dressed when she wore her navy-blue pants suit, but looking at the woman in front of her, she knew her outfit must look bargain basement compared with the beautifully tailored tan slacks and cream-colored blouse Nell MacDermott was wearing.

  Her pictures don’t do her justice, Lisa thought. She’s so pretty. And not surprisingly, she looks much better today than when I saw her right after the memorial Mass for her husband.

  Nell MacDermott’s greeting to her had been kind and warm. She told Lisa right away to call her Nell, and instinctively Lisa felt that she could be trusted, a quality that was very important under the present circumstances.

  There was something else reassuring about her as well—Nell MacDermott had an air of quiet confidence about her. As Lisa watched her, she could tell Nell had grown up accustomed to living in a nice place like this.