Willy knew he had no choice. “What do you want me to do, honey?” he asked. “There’s no place to park around here.”
Alvirah was already opening the passenger door. “Drive around the block. I’ll get out here. I’ll hide behind that fruit stand and follow her when she comes out. My guess is she’ll be heading back to the apartment or going somewhere to meet Richard. If I have to leave here before you get back, I’ll call you on the cell.”
She was gone and the traffic cop was again at the window, ordering Willy to move. “Okay, Officer, okay,” he said. “I’m pulling out.”
43
At nine A.M. Richard was in the wealth-management office at Roberts and Wilding at Chambers Street, arranging to withdraw two million dollars from his trust fund and have it wired into the account of Lillian Stewart.
“Richard, as we have discussed, in your lifetime you are allowed to give away several million dollars without tax penalties. Do you want this gift to be part of that lifetime allowance?” Norman Woods, his financial adviser, asked.
“Yes, that would be fine,” Richard said, recognizing that he was very nervous and hoping he wasn’t showing it.
Woods, white-haired, dressed as always in a dark blue suit, white shirt, and patterned blue tie, was approaching his sixty-fifth birthday and was close to retirement. It was on the tip of his tongue to do something totally out of character and say, “Richard, may I ask if Ms. Stewart is a romantic interest? I know that would delight your mother and father.”
Instead he kept his face impassive as he confirmed that when Richard got back to him with the information about Ms. Stewart’s bank account, the money would be wired directly to her.
Richard thanked him and left the office.
As soon as he was in the lobby of the building, he dialed Lillian’s cell phone.
44
From her perch behind the fruit stand, Alvirah waited for Lillian to come out of the bank. At ten after nine Willy drove around the corner, waved to her, and once again began to circle the block. At twenty after nine, when the door of the bank opened, Lillian stepped out onto the sidewalk. As Alvirah had expected, the folded tote bag she had been carrying under her arm was now firmly grasped in her left hand and obviously contained something.
Willy should be back any second now, Alvirah thought, then realized with dismay that Lillian was walking up the one-way street against the traffic. She’s probably going home, Alvirah decided. The best thing I can do is follow her and call Willy on the cell.
But at the corner of Broadway, Lillian darted across the avenue, and Alvirah realized that she might be heading for the subway entrance.
Lillian was moving quickly. Alvirah picked up her own pace, puffing from the effort of keeping up but staying a short distance behind. With one eye she was trying to catch Willy when he came around the block again, but when he sailed past he was not looking in her direction. He’ll just have to keep driving around. I can’t start fishing in my pocketbook for my cell phone now, she thought.
It was with a tremendous burst of energy that she managed to keep as close to Lillian as she dared without Lily’s seeing her as they both descended the subway steps. There was no train there, but the platform was crowded and the sound of an approaching train could be heard. Alvirah watched as at the same moment, she and Lillian reached into their pockets for their MetroCards. Then, standing a few people back from Lillian in the line, Alvirah followed her through the turnstile and saw that a train was pulling in. Lillian hurried onto the platform to board the train. Grateful that it was already crowded, Alvirah slipped onto the same subway car, careful to conceal herself behind several portly riders.
From the other end of the car Alvirah observed as Lillian stood, her eyes downcast, holding onto a pole with one hand and tightly clutching the tote bag with the other. But then as the train approached the Chambers Street station some twenty minutes later, Lillian began to move toward an exit door. When the train stopped, Alvirah waited for a moment to be sure that Lillian was getting off, then left the train herself in the middle of a large group.
The large exodus onto the platform meant that she was half a flight of stairs behind Lillian, who was hurrying up the subway steps to the street. Alvirah fumed with frustration as directly ahead of her a heavyset woman with a cane ascended the stairs, one step at a time. Try as she might, with the two-way traffic on the stairs, Alvirah could not make her way past or around her.
When she finally made it to street level, Alvirah frantically spun her head in all directions.
There was no sign of Lillian.
45
At twenty minutes after ten, he drove up to the heavy metal delivery doors at the back of the warehouse, Lillian beside him in the front passenger seat. It had taken less than ten minutes from where he picked her up at the subway exit to get to this isolated industrial neighborhood two blocks from the East River.
His corporate shell companies, created on paper for the sole purpose of hiding his identity, owned the boarded-up buildings on either side of this one. It was here that he had created his own splendid and secret world of antiquity. In a way he mourned the fact that he had never been able to share the magnificence of his priceless collection with another human being. Today it would happen. Lillian would be dazzled and awed. He could picture her eyes widening when she took in all the treasures of the second floor. And he knew that the greatest treasure of all was in the bag that she was grasping so tightly.
Jonathan had shown it to him, had let him remove it from the protective glassine envelope he had placed around it, had allowed him to touch it and to feel it, and to validate its authenticity.
It was authentic. There was no doubt about it. It was the one and only letter written by the Christ, and it had been written to the man who had befriended Him from His boyhood. Christ knew that soon He would be lying in Joseph’s tomb. He knew that even after His death, Joseph would once again be caring for Him.
The entire world would be mesmerized to see this, he thought. And it is mine.
“Where on earth are we going?” Lillian asked querulously.
“As I told you when I picked you up, I have an office in my warehouse where we can have complete privacy. Would you have wanted me to explain the details of the overseas account that I set up for you on a crowded sidewalk on Chambers Street?”
He could tell that she was only impatient, not yet nervous.
He pushed the button on the visor of the car and the massive delivery door lumbered noisily upward. Then he drove inside and pushed the button again to close the door behind them. It became pitch-dark as the door slid back down and he heard Lillian’s quick gasp, unmistakably the first sign of her realization that something might be terribly wrong.
He hurriedly reassured her. He wanted to observe and savor her reaction upon seeing his treasures, but she wouldn’t even look at them if she knew what was going to happen to her. From his pocket, he took the remote that activated the garage overhead light and clicked it on. “This is pretty barren, as you can see,” he said, smiling. “But my office is upstairs, and I assure you that it is much more inviting.”
He could see that she was not completely at ease. “Are there other people upstairs?” she asked. “I don’t see any other cars here. This place seems deserted.”
He allowed a touch of annoyance to creep into his tone. “Lillian, do you think I wanted an audience for this transaction?”
“No, of course not. Let’s go right to your office and get this done. Classes start next week, and I have a lot of errands to do.”
“With all this money, you’re still going to deal with students?” he asked as they got out of the car. He motioned her to the back wall. He slipped his hand under her arm as they walked across the cavernous windowless room. “This is the main level,” he explained. Then, leaning down, he pushed the hidden button at the bottom of the wall and the large lift began to descend.
“My God, what kind of setup is this?” Lillian asked, startled.
“Inventive, isn’t it? Come upstairs with me,” he said as he nudged her onto the lift. The two of them rode it to the next level, then stepped into the room. He waited until she was right beside him. “Ready?” he asked as he turned on the light. “Welcome to my kingdom,” he announced.
His eyes never left her face as she stepped into the enormous room and looked incredulously from one of the glorious antiquities he had gathered there to the next.
“However did you collect all of this?” she asked, stunned. “And why do you keep it here?” She spun around to face him. “And why did you bring me to a place like this?” she demanded. “This isn’t an office!” She stared at him, her face and lips suddenly turning pale. From the triumphant smile on his parted lips she knew that he had entrapped her. Panicking, she dropped the tote bag and made a quick move to shove past him.
Instantly, she felt his viselike grip pinning her body to him. “I’m going to be merciful, Lillian,” he said softly as he reached into his pocket for the syringe.
“You’ll just feel a prick and then nothing. I promise you. Nothing at all.”
46
As soon as Alvirah realized she had lost Lillian, she phoned Willy.
“Where have you been, honey?” he asked. “I was getting worried about you. I’ve circled the block a million times. The traffic cop thinks I’m a stalker. What’s going on?”
“Willy, I’m sorry. I chased behind her into the subway. I got on the same train and ducked down behind some big guys. She got off at Chambers Street, but I lost her in the crowd going up the stairs.”
“That’s too bad. What do you want to do now?”
“I’m going to come back uptown and sit in her lobby. If it takes all day, I’m going to have a showdown with that lady. Why don’t you go on home?”
“No way,” he replied firmly. “I don’t like this whole business, and with Rory missing, who knows who’s doing what? I’ll park the car at Lincoln Center and come in and sit with you.”
Alvirah knew that when Willy used that tone of voice, there was no changing his mind. Taking one last look around in the hope that Lillian might emerge from one of the many office buildings in the area, she sighed in resignation and retraced her steps back down into the subway.
Twenty-five minutes later she was at the door of Lillian’s apartment building across from Lincoln Center again. The doorman told her that Ms. Stewart was not home and then added, “There’s a lady and a gentleman already waiting for her in the lobby, ma’am.”
That would be Willy, Alvirah thought. I wonder who the woman is? On quick reflection, she decided that it would be Mariah.
She was right. Mariah and Willy were seated on leather chairs on opposite sides of a round glass table in a corner of the lobby. They were deep in conversation, but both looked up when they heard her footsteps clicking on the marble floor.
Mariah stood up and embraced Alvirah. “Willy’s been filling me in,” she explained. “I gather that we’ve all come to the same conclusion, that Lillian does have the parchment and that it’s time to confront her.”
“Has or had the parchment,” Alvirah said grimly. “As I’m sure Willy told you, she left the bank carrying a tote bag with some kind of package in it. My guess is that the parchment was in her safe-deposit box and she was delivering it to somebody this morning.”
Alvirah caught Willy’s questioning glance and knew she would have to tell Mariah that she had overheard and taped Lillian’s phone message to Richard last night. “Mariah, I think this is going to be a nasty surprise,” she said as she sat down next to her. She reached for the playback button on her sunburst pin and activated the tape.
“I can’t believe what I’m hearing,” Mariah said, biting her quivering lip as shock and disappointment flooded her. “That means Lillian was probably on her way to meet Richard this morning. He absolutely swore to me that he had not seen the parchment. Now I find out he struck a deal for it. God, I feel so betrayed, not just for myself, but worse still for my father. He really loved and respected Richard.”
“Well, we’ll just sit here and wait her out,” Alvirah said. “I’d like to see how she tries to weasel her way out of this one.”
Resolutely, Mariah blinked back the tears that were welling in her eyes. “Alvirah, on my way here at about ten o’clock, Greg called me. He wanted to see how I was and if I had heard anything more about Rory. I told him I was actually in my car and heading into the city to have it out with Lillian because I believe Dad gave her the parchment to hold for him. I told Greg that if Lillian wasn’t here, I intended to spend the whole day waiting in the lobby if necessary. He said he’d walk over here at about twelve thirty, unless I called him back to change it.”
At twelve twenty Greg walked into the building. Alvirah noticed with approval his protective embrace of Mariah as he leaned over her chair and kissed the top of her head. “Have you seen her yet?” he asked.
“No,” Willy said, “and I have a suggestion. Greg, why don’t you take the girls to lunch and bring me back a sandwich? Alvirah and Mariah, I promise I’ll call you right away if she shows up. We can’t get around the fact that the doorman will tell her that I’m here. But even if she bolts for the elevator, you can phone her when you get back here and play that tape. You can tell her we’re going straight to the cops with it. Trust me, she’ll talk to us.”
“I think that’s a good idea,” Greg said. “But after lunch I have to head out to New Jersey. My appointment with those detectives is at three o’clock.”
47
On Rikers Island, Wally Gruber sat in an attorney conference room listening sourly as Joshua Schultz related the conversation that he had had with Assistant Prosecutor Peter Jones.
“You’re telling me I should hand him the sketch of the guy who wasted that professor and all I get out of it is some half-baked promise that he’ll put in a good word for me before the judge buries me?” Wally shook his head. “I don’t think so.”
“Wally, you’re not in much of a position to call the shots. Suppose you come up with a picture of someone who looks like Tom Cruise and say, ‘That’s the guy I saw’? Are they going to say thanks a lot and give you some kind of free ride?”
“The guy I saw did not look like Tom Cruise,” Wally snapped, “and I bet you a million to one that when I sit down with that artist, we’ll come up with someone the family recognizes. Why do you think that guy had his face covered? Maybe he thought that if he ran into that old lady, she’d know who he was, even though she’s nuts.”
Joshua Schultz was beginning to wish he’d never taken the case of State of New York vs. Wally Gruber. “Look, Wally, you have a choice,” he began. “Either we take our chances with the prosecutor, or I call the old lady’s lawyer. If you think he can somehow pay you off or fight to get you probation, forget it. That won’t happen.”
“There’s a reward of a hundred grand out there from the insurance company for any leads about the jewelry I took,” Wally pointed out.
“And you have the nerve to think they’re going to give it to the person who took it in the first place?” Schultz asked incredulously.
“Don’t get smart with me,” Wally snapped. “What I’m talking about is they probably think that the gems have been pried out of the settings by now. I know they’re still just like when I got them.”
“How do you know that?”
“Because the fence I deal with has a lot of customers in South America. He told me he was going to take the stash to Rio next month. He told me it’s worth a lot more intact than it would be broken up. The Scott woman is a jewelry designer, right? Suppose I give up the fence and they get the jewelry back. The insurance company would be off the hook. That Scott woman would be thrilled. And on top of all this, I give the face of the killer to the husband, who’s defending the old lady. They’ll all be ready to forgive and forget. They’ll make me man of the year.”
“Sounds good on paper, Wally, but you seem to ignore a couple of very impo
rtant points. First, the lawyer for Kathleen Lyons is also the husband of the woman who owned the jewelry. He’d have to disqualify himself from the murder case because he’ll have a world-class conflict, the likes of which I’ve never seen before. Second, your information about the fence and jewelry would have to go to the prosecutor, because they’re the ones who would have to investigate it further. So what you’re suggesting is that we give some information to Lloyd Scott and other information to the prosecutor. That’s not going to work.”
“All right. I’ll give the prosecutor another chance. We’ll start with him, and when he sees I can give him the lowdown on the jewelry, maybe his attitude will change. Then we decide if we stay with him on the murder case or go to Lloyd Scott. One way or the other in the next few days, I’ll be sitting down with a cop.”
“Then you want me to call the prosecutor and tell him you’re also willing to provide information about recovering the jewelry?”
Wally pushed back his chair, clearly impatient to end the conversation. “You got it, Josh. Maybe this will convince him that I can solve the murder for him too.”
48
Detectives Simon Benet and Rita Rodriguez spent a busy Wednesday morning at the prosecutor’s office. After they’d left Mariah Lyons’s home on Tuesday evening, they’d decided to apply for the last month’s phone records of four of the men who had been at dinner with Mariah: Richard Callahan, Greg Pearson, Albert West, and Charles Michaelson.
“They were the closest associates of Professor Lyons,” Rita observed, “and I don’t buy that not one of them got a look at the parchment. Somebody’s lying, or maybe even they’re all lying.”