Before I Say Good-Bye Page 15

  As she followed Nell into the living room, she thought once more of Jimmy, and of how he used to kid her about the way she would pore over interior-design magazines. Lisa thought of the many hours she had spent mentally furnishing their dream house. Sometimes she envisioned it with a formal décor, including antique furniture and Persian carpets. At other times she saw it as decorated in English country style, and occasionally even in art deco or modern, although she knew those styles were out because Jimmy didn’t like them. Sadly she remembered how she used to tell him that when the kids were grown up, she wanted to go back to school and learn interior design. That would never be an option now.

  “You have a beautiful home,” she said quietly, looking about the room at the eclectic yet perfectly matched furnishings.

  “Thank you. I love it,” Nell said almost wistfully. “My mother and father traveled a great deal. They were anthropologists. They brought home some unusual pieces from all over the world. Add to them a couple of really comfortable couches and chairs, and the whole thing works. I can tell you, it certainly has been a haven for me this last week.”

  As she spoke, Nell MacDermott studied her visitor. Base makeup could not conceal the fact that Lisa Ryan’s eyes were puffy, and her complexion still showed the blotches that came from crying. Nell had the feeling that it would not take much to open a floodgate of tears.

  “I made a fresh pot of coffee,” she said. “Would you join me?”

  A few minutes later, they were sitting across the kitchen table from each other. Lisa knew it was up to her to break the silence. I’m the one who asked to come here, she thought, so I should begin. But where? she wondered.

  Taking a deep breath, she started: “Nell, my husband was out of work for nearly two years. He applied for a job at your husband’s firm, and then, out of the blue, got hired by your husband’s business partner, Sam Krause.”

  “I think Sam Krause was more of a business associate than a partner,” Nell said. “Adam was working on projects with several people, but he didn’t really consider any of them to be partners. When Adam was with Walters and Arsdale, he was the architect in charge of some building renovations, and Sam Krause was the building contractor. Then Adam opened his own firm and was planning to work with Krause on the Vandermeer project.”

  “I know. Jimmy had been reconstructing old apartment houses, but recently he told me they expected to start a big job, a tower apartment building, he said, and that he would be head foreman.”

  Lisa paused. When she spoke again, she said only “Nell,” and then her voice faltered. After another moment, she burst out, “Nell, Jimmy lost his job a couple of years ago because he was an honest man and spoke up about substandard materials being used by the outfit he was working with. He got blackballed for it and was out of work for a long time. So when he got the call about the job with Sam Krause, he was so happy to go to work. Looking back, though, I realize that the minute he started to work for him, something must have happened. I loved Jimmy so much and was so close to him, I couldn’t help but notice—he changed, almost overnight.”

  “What do you mean by ‘changed’?” Nell asked quietly.

  “He couldn’t sleep. He lost his appetite. He seemed almost to be in another world.”

  “What do you think was the reason for that?”

  Lisa Ryan put down her coffee and looked directly at the woman across the table from her. “I think Jimmy was forced to look the other way when he saw something at work that was terribly wrong. He would never have done anything bad himself, but at that point in his life, he was so beaten down that if he had to make a choice between being out of work again, or of simply looking the other way, I think he would have chosen the latter. But of course it was the wrong decision, especially for him. Jimmy was too good a man to be able to live with himself after doing something like that. I know that’s what must have happened, and it was driving him crazy.”

  “Did Jimmy talk to you about this, Lisa?”

  “No,” Lisa said, hesitating. When she spoke again, her words were rushed and nervous. “Nell, you’re a stranger, but I’ve got to tell somebody, so I’m trusting you. I found money hidden in Jimmy’s workroom in our basement. I think it was money he was given to keep his mouth shut. The way it was packed up, I can tell he never touched a nickel of it. But that was like him; he was honest and knew that he could never use that money.”

  “How much money was it?”

  Lisa’s voice dropped. “Fifty thousand dollars,” she whispered.

  Fifty thousand dollars! Jimmy Ryan clearly was in on something big, Nell thought. Would Adam have suspected or known about it? she wondered. Was that why Ryan had been invited to the meeting on the boat?

  “I want to give the money back,” Lisa said. “And I want to do it quietly. Even if Jimmy had to lose his job again, he should never have taken it, but as I say, he knew that. That’s why those last months, even though he was working, he was so terribly depressed. He can’t make retribution now, but I can do it for him. That money had to have come from someone at Krause Construction. I need to get it back to them. That’s why I’ve come to you.”

  Drawing on a supply of courage that was greater than she knew she possessed, Lisa leaned forward and reached across the table, taking the other woman’s hand. “Nell, when Jimmy applied for that job with your husband’s company, they had never met—I’m sure of that. Then, right after your husband got Jimmy on Sam Krause’s payroll, something happened, something terrible. I don’t know what it was, but I believe it had to do with whatever Jimmy and your husband both were working on. You have to find out what it was and then help me find a way to make it right.”

  forty-five

  GEORGE BRENNAN and Jack Sclafani were both present when Robert Walters, senior partner of Walters and Arsdale Design Associates, accompanied by the firm’s chief counsel, arrived at the office of Assistant District Attorney Cal Thompson. Thompson was the member of the D.A.’s staff in charge of the city’s recently launched investigation into bribery and bid rigging in the construction industry.

  All the parties in attendance knew that Walters was there under a “Queen for a Day” agreement, which granted him limited immunity for anything he disclosed in the discussion.

  His chief counsel had already issued a pro forma statement to the press: “Walters and Arsdale and its principals deny any wrongdoing and are confident they will not be charged with any criminal activity.”

  Behind the façade of disdain and casual indifference, it was clear to both Brennan and Sclafani that Robert Walters was nervous and agitated. Everything he did was just a little too precise, too perfect to be anything other than a well-rehearsed act.

  I’d be nervous too, Brennan thought. The big guys in almost two dozen firms just like his already had copped a plea, choosing the easy way out of this investigation. He knew that as a result, most of them would end up with a slap on the wrist, getting off by paying fines. Big deal. So you pay a million bucks while your company is raking in half a billion. Sometimes, if the prosecutor really had the goods on them, some of these guys ended up doing community service. In a couple of cases, a few of the big shots actually had gone to jail for a couple of months. But then they come out—and guess what? It starts all over again.

  It’s a simple racket, he thought. The powerhouse builders agree among themselves who’s going to get the job. The lowest bid is still padded, but the architect or planner accepts it—and gets a kickback in return. Then the next big project comes along, and bingo!—it’s the turn of the next powerhouse guy to give the low bid. It’s all a trade-off. Everything is rigged, and oh so civilized.

  Despite the apparent futility of the effort, Brennan believed in pursuing these cases. If we hold the feet of some of these top dogs to the fire, then the smaller companies at least will have a chance to get some of the good jobs, Brennan thought. Sometimes, though, he wondered if perhaps he weren’t too much of an optimist.

  “This is an industry in which legi
timate sales commissions have been misconstrued,” Walters was saying.

  “What my client meant to say . . .” Walters’ counsel interrupted.

  The questioning finally got around to what George Brennan and Jack Sclafani had come wanting to hear: “Mr. Walters, was the late Adam Cauliff a member of your firm?”

  Oh, he doesn’t like that name, Sclafani thought as he watched the face of Robert Walters flush with anger at the question.

  “Adam Cauliff was in our employ for about two and a half years,” Walters responded. Walters’ voice remained clipped and cold, as if he were disdainful of the subject.

  “In what capacity did Mr. Cauliff work for Walters and Arsdale?”

  “He began as a staff architect. Later he was put in charge of what we would consider midlevel reconstructions and renovations.”

  “What do you consider midlevel?”

  “Projects that will bill less than one hundred million dollars.”

  “Was his work satisfactory?”

  “I would say so.”

  “You say that Cauliff was with you for more than two years. Why did he leave you?”

  “To open his own firm.” Robert Walters smiled coldly. “Adam Cauliff was a detail-oriented man and very practical. We sometimes encounter architects who simply will not face the reality of the fact that office space is rented by the square foot. Despite their awareness that economies are important—sometimes paramount—considerations, they will plan unnecessary, space-wasting effects, such as extremely wide corridors, which, multiplied by thirty or forty stories, may dramatically reduce the space that will produce income.”

  “I gather then that Adam Cauliff was a valued employee, one who didn’t make that kind of mistake.”

  “He was efficient. He got the jobs done. And he learned quickly. He was smart enough to purchase the parcel of land adjacent to the Vandermeer mansion, which was then a historic landmark. When the mansion was removed from landmark status, the Kaplan property Adam purchased became infinitely more valuable.”

  “The mansion burned down, did it not?” the assistant D.A. asked.

  “Yes, that’s true. But not before it had already lost its landmark status. Even if there had not been a fire, the mansion would have been razed soon. Peter Lang bought the property and had begun plans to erect a combined apartment-office building.”

  Walters smiled grimly. “Adam Cauliff thought Lang would so desperately want the Kaplan parcel, which he now owned, that he would accept Cauliff’s design for the proposed building. It was not working out that way, however. If Adam had stayed with us and allowed our gifted architects to work with him, he would have had a chance to land the job.”

  “Meaning your firm would have landed the job?”

  “Meaning a team of visionary, award-winning architects, capable of creating a structure that would be on the cutting edge of urban design, would have worked with him. Cauliff’s design was pedestrian and imitative. The investors wouldn’t touch it, and I understand that Lang told him so.

  “Cauliff was in something of a bind. He would have had to sell the Kaplan parcel to Lang at more or less whatever price he was offered. Otherwise Lang might well have constructed a much less ambitious building, independent of Cauliff. Had that happened, the Kaplan parcel would have been so hemmed in as to be virtually useless. So you see, Cauliff was definitely in a tough spot.”

  “You weren’t sorry to see Adam Cauliff in that bind, were you, Mr. Walters?” the attorney asked.

  “I gave Adam Cauliff a job because of my great personal friendship with former congressman Cornelius MacDermott, into whose family he had married. Cauliff rewarded me for my effort by walking out on the firm and taking with him Winifred Johnson, who had been my assistant for twenty-two years, and who had become my virtual right arm. Am I sorry he’s dead? Yes, as a decent human being, I regret his passing. He was the husband of Nell MacDermott, whom I’ve known all her life. Nell is a wonderful young woman, and I regret the pain she must be experiencing.”

  The door to the office opened, and Joe Mayes, an assistant D.A., came in. From the expression on his face, Brennan and Sclafani could see that something big had happened.

  “Mr. Walters,” Mayes asked abruptly, “is your firm in the process of inspecting an office building on Lexington and Forty-seventh that you renovated several years ago?”

  “Yes, this morning we received notice that several bricks in the façade seemed loose. We immediately sent an inspection team to the site.”

  “I’m afraid the bricks are more than loose, Mr. Walters. The entire façade collapsed onto the street this morning. Three pedestrians were seriously injured, one of them critically.”

  George Brennan watched as the flushed face of Robert Walters became sickly pale. Was it a matter of substandard material? he wondered. Or perhaps shoddy workmanship? If so, whose pockets had been lined to ignore it?

  forty-six

  AT PRECISELY THREE O’CLOCK THAT AFTERNOON, Nell rang the doorbell at Bonnie Wilson’s apartment on Seventy-third Street and West End Avenue. Hearing the faint sound of approaching footsteps on the other side of the door, she thought for a moment of making a dash for the elevator while there still was time.

  What in the name of God am I doing here? she asked herself. Mac was right. All this talk of mediums and of messages from lost loved ones is nothing more than hocus-pocus, and I’m an idiot to put myself in the position of being ridiculed if it ever comes out that I fell for this kind of thing.

  The door opened.

  “Nell, come in.”

  Nell’s immediate impression was that Bonnie Wilson was more attractive in person than she had seemed on television. Her midnight black hair was a startling contrast to her porcelain complexion. Her large gray eyes were fringed with heavy lashes. The two women were about the same height, but Bonnie was rail thin, almost undernourished in appearance.

  Her smile was apologetic. “This is something I’ve never done before,” she explained as she led Nell from the foyer, halfway down a long hallway into a small study. “It has happened that, occasionally, when I am in touch with someone on the other side, another person there will communicate with me. But this is a different situation altogether.”

  She gestured to a chair. “Please sit down, Nell. Please understand, if, after we’ve chatted for a few minutes, you want to get up and walk out, I won’t be offended. From what your aunt tells me, you’re very uncomfortable with the whole concept of contact with those who have passed on.”

  “Truthfully, I may walk out, and I’m glad you realize that,” Nell said stiffly. “After what Aunt Gert told me, though, I felt I had to come. In my own life, I’ve had several instances that I suppose could be called psychic experiences. Gert may have told you about them.”

  “Actually, no, she has not. Over the last few years I have seen her at some of our Psychic Association meetings, and I was at a gathering in her apartment once, but I never had any discussion with her about you.”

  “Bonnie, I feel like I have to be very up front with you,” Nell said. “I simply don’t buy the concept of your being able to do something that sounds to me suspiciously like picking up a phone and contacting a dead person. Nor do I accept that someone on the ‘other side,’ as the books I’ve read put it, in essence picks up a phone and contacts you.”

  Bonnie Wilson smiled. “I appreciate your honesty. Nevertheless I, and other people all over the world with psychic powers—for reasons beyond our ken—have been chosen to be the mediators between people who have passed over and their loved ones here. Usually someone comes to me who is grief stricken and wants to try to be in touch with the person who has gone ahead.

  “But sometimes, infrequently, it works in a different way. For example, one day when I was helping a husband who had passed over give a message to his wife, I was contacted by a young person named Jackie who had died in an automobile accident. I didn’t understand how I could help him. Then, less than a week later, I received a phone call from
a woman I had never met.”

  It seemed to Nell that Bonnie Wilson’s eyes darkened as she spoke. “That woman had seen me on television and wanted to make an appointment for a private meeting. It seems her son, Jackie, had died in an automobile accident. She was the mother of the young man who had spoken to me from the other side.”

  “But there is much less coincidence in my being here now. To begin with, you knew Gert,” Nell protested. “Then the newspapers were filled with the story of the explosion on the boat, and virtually every article reported that Adam was married to Cornelius MacDermott’s granddaughter.”

  “Which is precisely why, when Adam contacted me during a channeling, gave me his name and asked for Nell, I knew to go to Gert.”

  Nell stood up. “Bonnie, I’m sorry, but I’m just not a believer. I’m afraid I’ve wasted too much of your time already. I should go.”

  “You haven’t wasted my time if you’ll just give me the chance to see if Adam wants to convey a message to you.”

  Reluctantly, Nell sat down again. I suppose I owe her that much, she thought.

  Minutes passed. Bonnie’s eyes were closed, her cheek resting on her hand. Then suddenly she tilted her head as though straining to hear someone or something. A long moment later she lowered her hand, opened her eyes and looked directly at Nell.

  “Adam is here,” she said quietly.

  In spite of her disbelief, Nell felt a chill pass through her body. Be sensible, she told herself fiercely. This is nonsense. She tried to make her voice sound both crisp and calm. “Can you see him?”

  “In my mind’s eye. He’s looking at you with so much love in his expression, Nell. He’s smiling at you. He’s saying that of course you don’t believe he’s here. You’re from Missouri.”

  Nell gasped. “I’m from Missouri” was an expression she had used jokingly whenever Adam tried to convince her that she could learn to enjoy boating.