Nighttime Is My Time Page 25

  “Mrs. Connors, Dr. Sheridan spoke to Peggy Kimball, who at one time worked for your husband. To assist Dr. Sheridan in finding her daughter, Ms. Kimball stated that Dr. Connors on occasion may have circumvented the rules governing adoptions. If that is your concern, I can tell you right now that Dr. Sheridan’s daughter has been located and the adoption was absolutely legal. In fact, Dr. Sheridan is going to have dinner with the adoptive parents this evening and will meet her daughter very soon. That part of the investigation is over.”

  The naked relief reflected in the woman’s expression was confirmation that he had dispelled her concerns. “My husband was such a wonderful man,” she said. “It would have been awful if ten years after his death, people began to think he had done something wrong or illegal.”

  He did, Sam thought, but that’s not why I’m here. “Mrs. Connors, I promise you that nothing you tell me will ever be used in a way that could sully your husband’s reputation. But please answer this question: Do you have any knowledge whatsoever of how someone might have had access to Jean Sheridan’s maternity file in your husband’s office?”

  There was no trace of nervousness left in Dorothy Connors’ voice or manner when she looked Sam straight in the eye. “You have my word of honor that I have no knowledge of any such person, but if I did, I would share it with you.”

  They had been sitting in the sunroom that Sam suspected was where Mrs. Connors spent most of her time. She insisted on walking him to the door, but as she opened it, she hesitated. “My husband handled dozens of adoptions during the forty years he practiced medicine,” she said. “He always took a picture of the baby after it was born. He put the date of birth on the back of each picture, and if the mother had named the baby before she signed it away, he wrote that down, too.”

  She closed the door. “Come with me into the library,” she said. Sam followed her through the living room, continuing through French doors that led to an alcove filled with bookshelves. “The photo albums are in here,” she said. “After Dr. Sheridan left, I found the picture of her baby with the name Lily inscribed on the back. I confess, I was terribly afraid that hers might have been one of the adoptions that couldn’t be traced. But now that Dr. Sheridan has located her daughter and is going to meet her, I’m sure she would like to have a picture of Lily when she was three hours old.”

  Stacks of photo albums took up one entire section of the shelves. The section had been labeled with dates going back forty years. The album Mrs. Connors pulled out had a page marker in it. She opened it, slid a picture from its plastic covering, and handed it to Sam. “Please tell Dr. Sheridan how happy I am for her,” she said.

  When Sam got back to the car, he carefully tucked away in his inside breast pocket the picture of a wide-eyed infant with long lashes and wisps of hair framing her face. What a beauty, he thought. I can only imagine how rough it must have been for Jean to give her up. I’m not that far from the Glen-Ridge. If she’s there, I’ll drop it off for her. Michaelson was going to call Jean after he spoke to me, so she’s probably all squared away about meeting the adoptive parents.

  When Sam called up, Jean was in her room and readily agreed to meet him in the lobby. “Give me ten minutes,” she said. “I just got out of the tub.” Then she added, “Nothing is wrong, is it, Sam?”

  “Nothing wrong at all, Jean.” Not at the moment, at least, he thought, even though a pervasive sense of unease would not leave him.

  He had expected Jean to be radiantly happy at the prospect of meeting Lily, but he could see that something was troubling her. “Why don’t we go over there?” he asked, nodding his head toward a far corner of the lobby where a sofa and chair were unoccupied.

  It did not take long for Jean to tell him her concern. “Sam, I am beginning to believe that Mark is the one sending the faxes,” she said.

  He saw the pain in her eyes. “Why do you think that?” he asked quietly.

  “Because he let slip that he knew I was a patient of Dr. Connors. I never told him that. There’s more. He was inquiring at the desk yesterday to see if I had received a fax and apparently was disappointed that it hadn’t come in. That was the one mistakenly included with someone else’s mail. Mark told me he worked at Dr. Connors’ office in the evening during the time I was seeing the doctor. Finally, he admitted he saw me at West Point with Reed. He even knew Reed’s name.”

  “Jean, I promise you, we’ll take a very close look at Mark Fleischman. I’ll be honest. I haven’t been happy that you’ve been confiding in him. I hope you didn’t pass on to him anything that Michaelson told you this morning.”

  “No, I didn’t.”

  “I don’t want to alarm you, but I think you need to be careful. I bet we’re going to find that the person sending the faxes is someone from your graduating class. Whoever it turns out to be—Mark or one of the others who attended the reunion—I don’t believe anymore that it’s about money. I think we’re dealing with a psychotic and a potentially dangerous personality.”

  He studied her for a long minute. “You were beginning to like Fleischman, weren’t you?”

  “Yes, I was,” Jean admitted. “That’s why it’s hard for me to believe that he may be a totally different person from how he appears on the surface.”

  “You don’t know that yet. Now I have something that may perk you up.” He took Lily’s picture out of his pocket, explaining what it was before he handed it to her. Then from the corner of his eye, he saw Gordon Amory and Jack Emerson coming through the front entrance of the hotel. “You may want to take it upstairs before you look at it, Jean,” he suggested. “Amory and Emerson just showed up, and if they see you, they’ll probably come over.”

  Jean quickly whispered, “Thanks, Sam,” took the picture from him, and hurried to the elevator.

  Sam saw that Gordon Amory had spotted her and was going to try to catch her. He hurried to intercept him. “Mr. Amory,” he said, “have you decided how long you’ll be staying here?”

  “I’ll be leaving by the weekend, at the latest. Why do you ask?”

  “Because if we don’t hear from Ms. Wilcox soon, we are going to treat her as a missing person. In that case we’ll need to speak at greater length to the people who were around her just before she disappeared.”

  Gordon Amory shrugged. “You’ll hear from her,” he said dismissively. “However, for the record, if you wish to contact me, I expect to be in the general area even after I check out here. Through Jack Emerson, as our agent, we are making an offer on a large tract of land where I plan to build my corporate headquarters. So when I leave the hotel I plan to stay in my Manhattan apartment for several weeks.”

  Jack Emerson had been speaking to someone near the desk. Now he joined them. “Any news of the toad?” he asked Sam.

  “The toad?” Sam raised his eyebrows. He was perfectly aware that Emerson meant Robby Brent, but he wasn’t about to let on.

  “Our resident comedian, Robby Brent. Isn’t he smart enough to know that all guests, missing or otherwise, like fish, smell after three days? I mean, enough already with the publicity stunt.”

  Emerson’s had a couple of shots of whiskey for lunch, Sam thought, noting the man’s flushed complexion.

  Ignoring the reference to Brent, he said, “Since you live in Cornwall, I assume you’ll be available if I need to talk with you about Laura Wilcox, Mr. Emerson. As I just explained to Mr. Amory, we will be listing her as a missing person if we don’t hear from her soon.”

  “Not so fast, Mr. Deegan,” Emerson said. “The minute Gordie—I mean, Gordon—and I have finished putting this deal together, I’m out of here. I have a place in St. Bart’s that it’s time for me to visit. Putting this reunion together was a lot of work. Tonight we take some more pictures at President Downes’ house, have a drink with him, and then this reunion is really over. Who gives a damn whether or not Laura Wilcox and Robby Brent ever show up? The Stonecroft Academy building committee doesn’t need their kind of publicity.”

 
Gordon Amory had been listening with an amused smile on his face. “I must tell you, Mr. Deegan, that I think Jack has put it very well. I tried to catch Jean, but she was in the elevator and I missed her. Do you know her plans?”

  “I don’t,” he said. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to get back to my office.” I wouldn’t tell any of those guys what Jean is doing, he thought as he crossed the hotel lobby, and I hope she heeds my warning not to trust any of them.

  His cell phone rang as he was getting into his car. It was Joy Lacko. “Sam, I’ve got a hit,” she told him. “On a hunch I checked out the report on Gloria Martin, the suicide, before I started researching the accidental deaths. At the time of her death there was a big article about Martin in her local newspaper in Bethlehem.”

  Sam waited.

  “Gloria Martin killed herself by putting a plastic bag over her head. And, Sam, get this: When they found her, she had a small pewter owl clutched in her hand.”

  76

  To Duke Mackenzie’s delight, at five minutes of nine that evening the taciturn participant in the Stonecroft reunion stopped in again. He ordered a grilled cheese and bacon sandwich, and coffee with skim milk. While the sandwich was grilling, Duke hastened to start a conversation. “A lady from your reunion was in this morning,” he said. “Said she used to live on Mountain Road.”

  He could not see past the man’s dark glasses, but something in the way his body stiffened made Duke sure he had gotten his attention.

  “Do you know her name?” the visitor asked casually.

  “Nope, sir, I don’t. I can describe her to you though. Really pretty, with brown hair and blue eyes. Her daughter’s name is Meredith.”

  “She told you that!”

  “No, sir. Don’t ask how it happened, but someone she was talking to on the phone told her that. I could tell she was all shook up about it. I can’t figure out why she wouldn’t know her own daughter’s name.”

  “I wonder if she was talking to someone else from our reunion,” the visitor mused. “By any chance did she mention the name of the person she was talking to?”

  “No. She did say that she’d see them—I mean him or her—tomorrow night at seven o’clock.”

  Duke turned his back to the counter, picked up a spatula, and removed the sandwich from the grill. He did not see the cold smile on his customer’s face, nor did he hear him whisper to himself, “No, she won’t, Duke. No, she won’t.”

  “Here you go, sir,” Duke said cheerfully. “I see you’re taking your coffee with skim milk. They say that’s healthier, but for me, I like good old-fashioned cream in my coffee. Figure I don’t have to worry. My father was still bowling a great game at eighty-seven.”

  The Owl tossed money on the counter and left with a mumbled good night. He felt Duke’s eyes following him as he walked to the car. I wouldn’t put it past him to follow me, he thought. He’s just nosy enough. He doesn’t miss anything. I can’t stop there anymore, but it really doesn’t matter. By this time tomorrow it will be finished.

  He drove slowly up Mountain Road but decided not to turn into the driveway at Laura’s house. Funny, I still call it that, he thought. Instead, he drove well past it and watched in the rearview mirror until he was sure he was not being followed. Then he made a U-turn and started making his way back, always watching for the headlights of other cars. When he was at his destination, he switched off his headlights, made a sharp turn into the driveway, and drove to the comparative safety of the enclosed backyard.

  Only then did he allow himself to concentrate on what he had just heard. Jean knew Meredith’s name! It had to be the Buckleys that Jean was going to be meeting tomorrow night. Meredith couldn’t have remembered where she lost the hairbrush, or by now that detective, Sam Deegan, would have been knocking at his door. It meant he had to move more swiftly than he had anticipated. He would have to enter and leave this house several times tomorrow in broad daylight. But he simply could not leave this car parked outside. That was out of the question. Even though the backyard was enclosed, a neighbor might spot it from a second-story window and phone the police. Laura’s house was supposed to be uninhabited.

  Robby’s car, with his body in the trunk, took up half of the garage. The first rental car that might have left telltale tire tracks at the place where he had taken Helen Whelan’s body was in the other parking space. He had to get rid of one of those cars so he could have access to the garage. The rental car would be traced back to him, he reasoned. I have to keep that until it’s safe to return it.

  I’ve come so far, The Owl thought. The journey has been so long. I can’t stop now. It must be completed. He looked at the sandwich and coffee he had bought for Laura. I didn’t have any dinner, he thought. What difference does it make if Laura eats or doesn’t eat tonight? She won’t have that long to be hungry tomorrow.

  He opened the bag and ate the sandwich slowly. He sipped the coffee, reflecting that he preferred it black. When he was finished, he got out, unlocked the door to the kitchen, and went inside. Instead of going up the stairs to Laura’s bedroom, he opened the door from the kitchen to the garage and deliberately slammed it behind him as he pulled on the plastic gloves he always kept in the pocket of his jacket.

  Laura would hear the sound and begin to tremble with the agony of uncertainty that this might be the time he had come to kill her. But she also would be hungry by now and would be anticipating what he had brought her to eat. Then, when he didn’t come up the stairs, both the fear and anticipation would build and build until she was broken, ready to do what he wanted, ready to obey.

  In a way he wished he could reassure her that soon it would be over, because to reassure her was to reassure himself. He understood that the pain in his arm was distracting him. The dog bites had seemed to be healing, but now the worst one had become inflamed again.

  He had left Robby’s keys in the ignition of the car. Repelled at the thought of Robby’s lifeless body, covered by blankets and sprawled in the trunk, he clicked the garage door open, got in Robby’s car, and backed it out. In a few minutes, which seemed like an eternity, he had his second rental car safely hidden in the garage.

  With the headlights off until he was halfway down the block, The Owl began driving Robby Brent’s car the few miles to its final destination in the Hudson River.

  Forty minutes later, his task accomplished and having walked from the spot where he had sunk the car, he was safely back in his room. His mission tomorrow would be treacherous, he reflected, but he would do his best to minimize the danger. Before daybreak he would walk back to Laura’s house. Maybe he would have Laura call Meredith and say she was her birth mother. She would ask to meet her outside West Point for just a few minutes after breakfast. Meredith knows she’s adopted, The Owl thought. She talked about it freely enough to me. There’s no nineteen-year-old who wouldn’t jump at the chance to meet her birth mother, he was confident of that.

  And then when he had Meredith, Laura would phone Jean for him.

  Sam Deegan wasn’t stupid. Even now he might be delving into the deaths of the other girls from the lunch table, investigating the accidents that hadn’t been accidents. It wasn’t until Gloria that I began to leave my signature, The Owl thought, and the irony is that the first one had been a trinket the stupid woman bought herself.

  “You’ve really made it big, and to think we used to call you ‘The Owl,’ ” she’d said with a laugh, a little drunk, still totally insensitive. Then she showed him the pewter owl, still wrapped in plastic. “I happened to see it at one of those places in the mall that sell this kind of junk,” she explained, “and when you phoned to say you were in town, I went back and bought one. I thought we’d have a good laugh about it.”

  He had a lot of reasons to be grateful to Gloria. After she died he’d bought a dozen of those five-dollar, inchlong pewter owls. Now there were three left. He could get more, of course, but when he had used the three he still had, it might be the end of his need for them. Laura and Jean
and Meredith. One owl for each.

  The Owl set his alarm for 5:00 A.M. and went to sleep.

  77

  To sleep, perchance to dream, Jean thought as she restlessly turned on her side and then onto her back. Finally she turned on the light and got out of bed. The room felt too warm. She walked across the room and opened the window wider. Maybe I’ll get to sleep now, she thought.

  The baby picture of Lily was on the night table. She sat on the edge of the bed and picked up the photograph. How could I have let her go? she agonized. Why did I let her go? She felt as if she was on an emotional roller coaster. Tonight I’m going to meet the man and woman who were given Lily right after she was born. What do I say to them? Jean wondered. That I am grateful to them? I am, but I’m ashamed to admit that I’m also jealous of them. I wanted to experience everything that they experienced with her. Suppose they change their minds and decide that I shouldn’t meet her yet?

  I need to meet her, and then I need to go home. I want to get away from all the Stonecroft people. Last night the atmosphere at President Downes’ cocktail party was dreadful, she thought as she turned off the light and lay down again. Everyone seemed to be uptight, but each in a different way. Mark—what is going on inside him? she wondered. He was so quiet and went out of his way to avoid me. Carter Stewart was in a foul mood, growling that he’d lost an entire day’s work chasing after Robby’s scripts. Jack Emerson had an edge on him and was gulping double scotches. Gordon seemed okay until President Downes kept trying to show him blueprints of the proposed new building. Then he practically exploded. He pointed out that at the dinner he had presented a check for $100,000 for the building fund. I can’t believe the way he raised his voice and asked if anyone had noticed that the more you give, the more people try to drag out of you.

  Carter was just as rude. He said that since he never made donations to anything, he didn’t have that problem. Then Jack Emerson followed those two by bragging that he was donating half a million dollars to Stonecroft for the new communications center.