The Melody Lingers On Read online

  After the tour they sat at a table in the den as Glady made sketches of the minor architectural changes she proposed to make throughout the apartment. At four o’clock Lane began to take stealthy glances at her watch. This could go on forever, she thought, and I have to be home by five thirty.

  That was the time her wonderful babysitter, Bettina, insisted she had to leave. Finally, at twenty after four Glady stood up from the table. “I think that’s enough for today,” she said abruptly. “But let me assure you, Countess, that when I am finished you will have one of the most beautiful residences in New York.”

  “And to think that only six months before he died, my husband had the foresight to listen to me and withdraw his money from the Bennett Fund,” the countess said unexpectedly. “If he had not, I assure you that I would not be redecorating this apartment.”

  Lane and Glady stared at her. “I didn’t know you were involved in that fund,” Glady said quietly.

  “Oh, we were just two of the many,” the countess said. As she spoke her brown eyes widened and her voice lost its modulated tone. “He had a dinner party for ten of us who were heavily invested with him. He toasted his wife. He couldn’t have been more flowery in the way he spoke of her. But later I happened to pass the library on my way to the restroom. The door was open. He was on the phone. It was obvious that he was talking to a woman. He was telling her that before too long she would have everything she ever wanted. That was when I felt that if he could cheat on his wife after speaking so convincingly about how he cherished her, he might also be cheating in other ways.”

  “Did you tell the FBI about that conversation?” Lane asked.

  “I did, but I got the impression that they knew he had had a lot of girlfriends over the years and whoever this one was, she was just one of many to whom he made lavish promises.”

  Lane knew there was a question she had to ask. “Do you think his son, Eric, was involved in the scam?”

  Countess Sylvie remembered to speak in her carefully cultivated voice. “I haven’t got the faintest idea,” she sighed.

  At four thirty, on the way down in the elevator, Lane asked, “Glady, something doesn’t ring true to me. Do you think Parker Bennett would be so careless that he’d let someone overhear that kind of conversation?”

  “Of course he didn’t,” Glady snapped. “The rumor always has been that Sylvie de la Marco, nee Sally Chico from Staten Island, was one of Bennett’s girlfriends. This is her way of keeping the spotlight off herself. Who knows? Bennett may have given her a hot tip to get out of the fund while the getting was good.”

  7

  As usual Katie was waiting at the door for Lane when she got home at ten after five. “Mommy! Mommy!”

  Lane scooped her up and hugged her. “Who loves you?” she demanded.

  Katie giggled. “You do.”

  “And who will love you forever and ever?”

  “You will.”

  Lane ran her fingers through Katie’s long golden-red hair. She got the hair from my genes, she thought. But those brilliant blue eyes are Ken’s gift to her. As soon as she set her down, Katie tugged her by the hand. “I drew a new picture in school today,” she announced proudly.

  She had laid it out on the coffee table. Lane had expected to see a picture of one of the animals Katie loved to draw, but this one was different. It bore a remarkable resemblance to Lane in the jacket and scarf and slacks she had been wearing when they went to the Central Park Zoo last Saturday.

  There was no question Katie had an extraordinary talent for drawing. Even the crayons she used vividly captured the colors Lane had been wearing that day.

  Lane felt a lump form in her throat. As she showered praise on Katie, she could only think of how gifted an artist Ken had been; she almost said, “You sure are Daddy’s girl,” and then stopped herself. Be careful, she thought. As she gets older, she’ll understand how talented he was.

  Bettina, the nanny, had been with her since shortly after Katie was born. Small, with a compact body, with only a few strands of gray in her glossy black hair, Bettina at sixty-one had the energy of a woman half her age. For the last year she had been taking care of her elderly mother and needed to catch the six o’clock bus from the Port Authority to her home in New Jersey. Lane had been forced to give Glady an ultimatum. Either she left the office promptly at five or she would have to change jobs. Glady had reluctantly agreed, although she regularly muttered about how lucky Lane was to have such a kind and understanding employer.

  A roast chicken and sweet potatoes were already in the oven. Asparagus was in a pan on the stove and the table in the dinette was set. Lane shed her coat and gloves and scarf and sat with Katie in their compact living room. It was their special time together. She always allowed the phone to take messages between the hours of five and seven. Her mother in Washington and her close friends understood that. It was a joke among them that the rule was made for the benefit of Glady, who thought nothing of calling Lane minutes after she arrived home. Sometimes they asked why Lane didn’t change jobs. Lane’s answer always was that Glady’s bark was worse than her bite and it was deeply satisfying to work for someone who was so incredibly talented. “I learn something from her every day,” she told them. “She not only is a marvelous designer but she can read people like a book. I wish I had that talent.”

  The phone rang twice during the time that she and Katie were having dinner but she did not check her messages until after Katie was tucked into bed at eight thirty.

  Both of them were from Eric Bennett, asking her to have dinner with him on Saturday night.

  She hesitated, put down her cell phone, then picked it up again. The image of the attractive man who, with a touch of irony in his voice, had walked them through the Bennett mansion filled her mind.

  Glady had said that she thought Eric might be innocent of any knowledge of the scam. “Might be innocent,” not is innocent, Lane thought.

  She hesitated, then pushed the call-back button on her cell phone.

  8

  Were you talking to that nice young woman who was here with Glady Harper?” Anne Bennett asked her son. She had come into the former breakfast room just as he was ending his conversation. They were about to have their usual late dinner.

  “Yes, I was,” Eric said, smiling.

  “I Googled her,” Anne told him as she sat at the table and unfolded her napkin. “Thanks to you that’s the one thing I’ve learned to do on the computer.”

  Eric knew that his mother had learned to use the Internet after the Fund failed because she wanted to see any news article that applied to his father. He had refused to teach her how to use Twitter because of the never-ending references to him. They came not only from the bitter investors who had lost all their money but also from comedians who had made Parker Bennett a source of their jokes. “Park your money with Bennett and you’ll never have to pay income tax again” was one of the latest.

  He did not tell his mother that he had Googled Lane Harmon as well. “And what did you find out about her, Mother?” he asked.

  “She has an interesting background,” Anne said with a nervous gesture as she tucked a strand of hair behind her ear.

  Watching her, Eric thought of how his mother’s hair used to look. She had worn it in an elegant silver-tinted upsweep perfectly coiffed by Ralph, her longtime hairdresser. His blood boiled when he thought of how, after ten years as a valued customer and a generous tipper, she had been barred from returning to his salon. “Your presence will upset too many of our clients who lost money investing with your husband,” he had explained.

  His mother had returned home choking back tears. “Eric, he wasn’t even apologetic,” she had told him. Now a stylist from an inexpensive salon in Portchester came to the house once a week.

  He opened the bottle of pinot noir that was in a Waterford crystal decanter next to his chair.

  Marge O’Brian, their full-time housekeeper of fifteen years, was his father’s staunchest defender a
nd still came in to serve his mother lunch and dinner and to tidy up. One of the great problems of moving to New Jersey was giving up Marge, who could never leave her family in Connecticut.

  Tonight he knew she had prepared a Waldorf salad, salmon, and wild rice, his mother’s favorite dinner. He only hoped that when it came she would do more than pick at it.

  Now he asked, “And what did you find out about Lane Harmon?”

  “She was widowed in a car accident before her baby was born. She’s the daughter of Gregory Harmon, the congressman who they said had the potential to be the next Jack Kennedy. He was killed in a crash when he went on a golf outing in a private plane with three of his friends. Lane was only seven years old. Isn’t it terrible that she suffered that kind of loss twice?”

  “Yes, it is.” Eric reached for his mother’s glass and filled it. “You may be pleased to know that I invited her to have dinner on Saturday night and she accepted.”

  Anne Bennett smiled, a genuine smile. “Oh, Eric, that’s nice. She’s so pretty and I can see how smart she is. She made me feel so comfortable. That Glady Harper may be doing us a favor, but she intimidates me.”

  “I suspect she intimidates everyone, Mother, even me,” Eric joked.

  Anne Bennett looked affectionately across the table at her son. Then her eyes filled with tears. “Oh, Eric, you’re the image of your father. I so often think about how we met purely by happenstance. We were both going down the subway stairs. It was raining and the stairs were slippery. I slipped and almost fell. He was on the step in back of me. He grabbed me by my waist and held me against him and that was the beginning.

  “He said to me, ‘You are so pretty. Why do you look familiar?’

  “I told him I had just started working as a secretary at the same firm where he worked. We went down the steps and he walked me to my train. A few days later he called and asked me out. That was it. When he proposed, he said that the moment he put his arms around me that day, he knew he would never let go of me again. I was dating someone else, but it didn’t matter. He was history the day I met your father.”

  It isn’t a blessing to be the image of my father, Eric thought. I can hardly go anywhere that people don’t turn their heads and look at me. But what was more unsettling was that his mother repeated that story over and over again. His parents had been married eight years before he was born. His mother was now almost sixty-seven years old. He was beginning to wonder if she might be in the early stages of dementia.

  Another problem, he thought.

  “Do you want your coffee in the sitting room, Mrs. Bennett?” Marge asked as she began to clear the table.

  The sitting room was the new name for the den that had been designated for the help.

  “Yes we do,” Eric answered.

  “I’ll have another glass of wine,” Anne Bennett said.

  Eric frowned. Lately his mother had been drinking too much wine. The house is dreary and desolate, he thought. It will be good when she moves to Montclair next week. Once Mother is settled there, I think her spirits will be much better.

  He guided his mother by the arm as they walked down the hall. But when they went into the room he was startled to see that the music box his father had given to his mother long ago was on the mantel.

  Anne Bennett reached up and took it down. “I love to hear it play. I know I told you it was the first present your father gave to me. It looks expensive but in those days it was only about thirty dollars. We both loved to dance. The figures dancing when the music plays are Czar Nicholas and Czarina Alexandra. But of course you know that.”

  No, I don’t remember that, Eric thought. He did remember that the ornate little music box had been on his mother’s dressing table for years. He had never been around when she played it.

  As Marge brought in a tray with coffee, his mother lifted the lid of the box and the figures of the doomed couple began to dance.

  “I don’t know if you will recognize it,” his mother said. “It’s my favorite Irving Berlin song. It goes like this.” She began to sing softly. “ ‘The song is ended but the melody lingers on.’

  “Whether or not your father is alive or dead, our song is not ended and our melody lingers on,” she said, her voice fierce and allowing no room for contradiction.

  9

  On Friday morning Lane made her usual stop at Glady’s office and was surprised to see Glady poring over paint chips and swatches of materials.

  She opened the conversation in her usual brusque manner. Holding up one of the chips, she said, “You’re right. This deep blue is too dark for Anne Bennett’s bedroom. But you’re wrong about going to another color. The answer is to put white wainscoting at chair height on the walls. That will punch the blue and be very dramatic.”

  “And expensive,” Lane reminded her. “Are you doing this without charge?”

  “Of course not. I’ll bury it in the bill I present to Countess La-di-da. She can afford it. I still say that bandit tipped her off to get her money out of his fund.”

  “I’ll take care of it,” Lane promised.

  “Don’t be in such a hurry. That’s not all.”

  “Sorry.”

  Glady held up five swatches of material. “I don’t like the spread and drapes we took from the old guest room at the Bennett mansion. I’ve ordered these. Spread, pillows, bed skirt, vanity skirt, draperies, and chaise lounge. It will make a beautiful bedroom for that poor woman.”

  “And all these to be charged to the countess?”

  “Of course. We’ll do a little claw back of our own.”

  Trying not to shake her head, Lane headed for her own office. This was the time when Glady called her suppliers and tortured them to be sure that there would be no delay in having work done or supplies delivered on time.

  Lane knew it was a good opportunity to make a quick phone call to her mother. Mom will be in the shop by now, she thought. Her mother owned an antique shop in Georgetown. She was always trying to persuade Lane to move there, saying she would finance her opening a decorating business of her own.

  Lane knew she was not ready to do that yet. Even just a minute ago I learned something from Glady, she thought. And besides that, I have no interest in living near my stepfather.

  Her mother answered on the first ring. “Lane, I was about to call you. How’s Katie?”

  “Great. She’s turning into quite a little artist.”

  “No surprise.”

  “And I’m fine too,” she said.

  Her mother laughed. “Believe it or not that was my next question,” Alice Harmon said defensively.

  Lane visualized the dynamic woman who was her mother. Alice Harmon Crowley was in her midfifties. Her once-auburn hair was now completely gray. She wore it in a short bob around her face. She had no use for having to fuss with it. “There are better things to do than stand in front of a mirror and primp yourself,” was the way she put it. Tall and slender, she did yoga at six o’clock every morning.

  She did not remarry for ten years after Lane’s father died in the plane crash. Lane’s stepfather, Dwight Crowley, wrote a daily political column for the Washington Post and was considered an important player on the Washington scene. He and her mother were married just as she was starting college. She was glad that her mother was happy with Dwight, but she didn’t like him. His idea of a discussion was “I talk; you listen,” she thought. He’s nothing like Daddy.

  Dwight and her mother were a sought-after couple in Washington’s inner circle. Now Lane asked, “Have you been to the White House this week?”

  “No, but we’ve been invited to a White House dinner for the Spanish ambassador next week. What have you been up to?”

  “Glady got a call from Parker Bennett’s son. We’re doing work on Anne Bennett’s town house in New Jersey.”

  “I know a dozen people who got caught in the Bennett mess,” her mother said. “It’s been horrible for them. Did you meet the son? A lot of people, and especially Dwight, think he w
as in on the scheme.”

  Lane had been about to say that she’d made a date to have dinner with Eric Bennett Saturday night, but the sudden, chilly tone in her mother’s voice made her decide to say nothing about it. When the call ended she acknowledged to herself that it had been a mistake to accept Eric Bennett’s invitation. Thanks to the extra work on the New Jersey town house, she would be in and out of it much more than she had anticipated. She knew that Eric worked behind the scenes in another brokerage firm and that he had an apartment in Manhattan. But one of the bedrooms was being furnished for him. Glady had said that he had told her he planned to stay over regularly with his mother.

  It isn’t a good idea to have dinner with him, Lane thought, dismayed. Why didn’t I tell him I was busy?

  She did not like the answer that in all honesty she had to face. Eric Bennett was a very attractive man and she was looking forward to seeing him again.

  The sins of the father should not be visited on the son, she thought firmly, and then turned her attention to the swatches that Glady had handed to her to decorate the bedroom of the woman whose husband had stolen five billion dollars.

  • • •

  Dr. Sean Cunningham sat beside Ranger Cole at the funeral service for his wife, Judy. It was being held in the chapel of the funeral parlor. Her body had been cremated and the urn containing her ashes was on a table covered with a white cloth in the aisle. Ranger had insisted that he carry the urn himself and place it on the table.

  It was obvious to Cunningham that Ranger was not hearing one word of the service. His eyes were fixed on the urn, and when he suddenly burst out sobbing, his plaintive wail could be heard throughout the chapel.

  There were about forty people there. Cunningham guessed them to be coworkers and neighbors but when the service was over and they went outside he recognized a number of people who, like Ranger, had been victims of Parker Bennett.

  One of them, Charles Manning, a retired lawyer, seventy-eight years old, came up to Cunningham. Nodding his head toward Ranger, who was now clutching the urn, he said, “Sean, I think Ranger could go off the deep end. Is there anything you can do to help him?”