And, if so, now that he was dead, would she quietly find a buyer for it and pocket what could be an enormous sum of money?
It was a scenario he wanted to discuss with Mariah. Maybe it would do her good if I asked her out for dinner tonight, he thought.
But when he phoned her, it was to learn that Greg had already called and she was having dinner with him. Richard realized how deeply disappointed he was to hear that.
Had the decision he had finally made come too late?
19
That was a good night’s work,” the pawnbroker told Wally Gruber when Wally brought in his haul from the Scott home burglary. “You sure know how to pick them.”
Wally beamed in agreement. Forty years old, short of stature, balding, with a somewhat bulky frame and an engaging smile that warmed the unsuspecting recipient, he had a long list of unsolved burglaries to his credit. Only one time had he been caught, and he had served a year in prison. Now he was employed as an attendant in a parking garage on West 52nd Street in Manhattan.
My day job, he would think sardonically—Wally had found a new and much safer way to engage in criminal activity without attracting the attention of the police.
The scheme he had dreamed up was to place tracking devices under the cars of people whose homes he might consider burglarizing, then follow the movements of those cars on his laptop computer.
He never did it to a regular patron of the garage, only the occasional customers who would come in just for an evening. The way he chose his victims was often by the jewelry the wife was wearing. In late July he had put a tracer on the Mercedes-Benz of a guy who was dressed for a black-tie dinner. The wife was a knockout even though she was fiftyish, but the emeralds she was wearing caught Wally’s eye. Dangling emerald-and-diamond earrings, a diamond-and-emerald necklace, a bracelet that jumped out at you, a ring that must have been seven carats. Willy had to force his eyes from feasting on the sight.
Surprise, surprise, he thought when Lloyd Scott handed him a five-dollar tip at the end of the evening. You don’t know what a gift you just gave me.
He had driven out to Mahwah, New Jersey, the next night and passed by the Scott home. It had been well lighted both inside and out and he had been able to read the name of the security system. A pretty good one, he thought admiringly. Hard to get around for most people, but not me.
The Mercedes had gone back and forth to the city for the next week. Wally bided his time. Then one week passed and the car had not moved. Wally drove out again to check the site. The house was lit up in one downstairs room and in an upstairs bedroom.
The usual, he thought. Lights on timers, make people believe you’re home. Then last Monday evening he’d made his move. Using stolen plates on his own car and with a “borrowed” E-ZPass from one of the cars in the garage, he had driven to Mahwah and parked down the block, where the neighbors were obviously having a gathering. Six or seven cars were lining the street. Wally easily bypassed the alarm, got into the house, and had just finished cleaning out the safe when he heard a shot and rushed to the window, getting there in time to see someone running from the house next door.
He watched as a hand reached up and pulled down a scarf or handkerchief just as the figure passed the overhead light on the cobblestone path to the sidewalk, then turned and disappeared down the block.
Wally saw the face clearly and in that instant it seared into his mind. Maybe someday he would find that memory useful.
He’d wondered if anyone else had heard the shot and if there might be someone in the house who was calling the police now. Grabbing his booty, Wally rushed from the house, but even in his haste he did not forget to lock the safe and reset the alarm. He got to his car and drove away, his heart pounding. It was only when he was safely back in Manhattan that he realized he had forgotten one very important detail. He had left the tracking device on the Mercedes-Benz, which was parked in the garage of the house he had burglarized.
Would it be found? When would it be found? He had been careful, but could he have left a fingerprint on it? Because if he had, his fingerprints were on file with the cops. It was a disquieting thought. Wally did not want to go back to prison. He had read with avid interest about the murder of Dr. Jonathan Lyons and could tell that the cops thought his wife, who suffered from Alzheimer’s, was the one who had done it.
I know better, Willy thought. The one comfort he hugged to himself was that now if the cops did trace the tracking device back to him, he could trade his description of the killer for a light sentence on the jewelry heist, or maybe even immunity.
Or maybe I’ll really get lucky. They’ll go to some fancy party around here and park in my garage again.
As worried as he was, he realized it was too dangerous now to try to sneak back into that garage and try to get the tracker off the Mercedes.
20
Busy with their own thoughts, Detectives Simon Benet and Rita Rodriguez were silent for the first fifteen minutes after they got in their car and started to drive back to New Jersey.
When they reached the West Side Highway, Rita looked pensively out at the boats on the Hudson, remembering how only a few weeks before 9/11, she had met her husband, Carlos, at five o’clock at a café on the waterfront for cocktails and dinner. Some of the tall ships had been back and she and Carlos had gloried in the warmth of the late afternoon, the beauty of the nearby ships, and the feeling that New York was special, so terribly special.
He had worked in the World Trade Center, and the ultimate tragedy had occurred. It was the same sort of late-summer day as this that we were here, she thought. And once again she asked herself who could have predicted that disaster could ever have happened.
I never imagined I would lose him, she thought. Never.
But then, a week ago at this time, who could have predicted that Professor Jonathan Lyons would be a murder victim? He was killed on Monday, she mused. I wonder what he was doing last Saturday. He had a full-time caregiver for his wife. Did he slip over to New York to visit his girlfriend, Lillian Stewart?
It would be interesting to trace Professor Lyons’s movements over last weekend. And what about the Vatican parchment, the letter to Joseph of Arimathea that may have been written by Christ? Did Jonathan Lyons really find it? Its value would be incalculable. Would someone kill for it?
Of course we’ll follow up on it, but I don’t believe it has anything to do with this homicide, Rita thought. That gun was fired by a jealous and demented wife, and her name is Kathleen Lyons.
“Rita, my guess is that our professor went to confession, or should I say the reconciliation room, with Father Aiden.” Simon Benet’s matter-of-fact voice broke into her reverie. “I know I hit home when I asked the good father that question.”
“Do you think Lyons might have been planning to give up his girlfriend?” Rita’s voice was incredulous.
“Maybe, maybe not. You’ve seen how his wife acts. Maybe he was just saying, ‘Father, I can’t deal with it anymore. Right or wrong, I have to get out.’ He wouldn’t have been the first to say that.”
“What about the parchment? Who do you think has it?”
“We’ll check on the people whose names Father Aiden gave us. The professors and the other guy who hung out with them, Greg Pearson. And I want to talk to Lillian Stewart, too. If there is a valuable parchment and she has it, who knows how honest she’ll be about it? She may have gone to Professor Lyons’s grave, but just two minutes later she was in the car with Richard Callahan.”
Simon Benet steered around a slow-moving driver. “Right now my money is still on Kathleen Lyons, and our next step is to get a search warrant. I want to go through every inch of that house. I have a hunch we’ll find something more tying Kathleen Lyons to the murder.
“But whether we find anything else or not, I’m recommending to the prosecutor that we make the arrest.”
21
Willy was comfortably settled in his overstuffed chair, his feet on a hassock, watching the Yankee
s–Red Sox game. It was the bottom of the ninth inning. The score was tied. Willy, a lifelong Yankees fan, was holding his breath.
He heard the turn of the key in the lock and knew that Alvirah was returning from her lunch with Lillian Stewart.
“Willy, I can’t wait to tell you.”
Alvirah sat down on the couch, forcing Willy to mute the television and swivel in his chair to talk to her.
“Willy,” Alvirah said emphatically. “I got the impression on the phone that Lillian wanted to get my advice on something, but when I met her she was downright evasive. I asked her when the last time she saw Jonathan was, and she said last Wednesday evening. He was shot five nights later on Monday, so that sounded really strange to me.”
“So you turned on your pin.” Willy knew that whenever Alvirah got even a sniff of something being wrong, she automatically turned on the recording device in her gold sunburst pin.
“Yes, because Mariah has said in the past that she knew for sure that Lily and her father got together at least two or three times a week, and they always saw each other at least one evening on the weekend. Jonathan would stay at home during the day. The weekend caregiver is really trustworthy, and if he and Lily went out for dinner, he’d stay at her apartment overnight.”
“Uh-huh.”
“But the point is, why didn’t Lily see him that last weekend before he was shot? There’s something fishy there. I mean, had they quarreled?” Alvirah continued. “Anyhow, Lily talked, of course, about how much she already missed Jonathan and how sad she was that he hadn’t put Kathleen in a nursing home, if only to protect her from herself, that kind of thing.
“Then she got teary and said that Jonathan would tell her how much he and Kathleen had been in love and what a wonderful life they’d had together before the Alzheimer’s set in. Jonathan told her that if Kathleen had a choice, which of course she didn’t, she’d rather have died than be in this condition.”
“I would too, honey,” Willy said, “but if you catch me putting the key in the refrigerator, just pack me off to a good nursing home.”
He permitted himself a brief glance at the television, in time to see the first Yankee up hit a pop fly ball for an out.
Alvirah, who missed nothing, had caught the side glance. “Oh, Willy, it’s all right. You go ahead and watch the rest of the game.”
“No, honey, keep thinking. I can tell you’re onto something.”
“You see what I mean, Willy?” Alvirah’s voice became faster with every word. “Suppose Jonathan and Lily had quarreled?”
“Alvirah, you’re not suggesting that Lillian Stewart shot Jonathan, are you?”
“I don’t know what I’m suggesting. But I do know this. I’m going to call Mariah right now and ask if we can drop in for a visit tomorrow afternoon. I need to know more about what’s been going on.” As she finished speaking Alvirah stood up. “I’m going to change into something comfortable. Why don’t you just finish watching your game?”
As Willy swiveled in his chair, he pushed the mute button on the remote control, this time to turn the volume back on. He looked at the screen. The Yankees were on the field jumping up and down and hugging each other.
The announcer was shouting breathlessly, “The Yankees win! The Yankees win! Two outs, bottom of the ninth, two strikes, and Derek Jeter hits a home run!”
I can’t believe it, Willy thought sadly. I’ve been watching this game for three hours, and the minute I turn my back Jeter puts one in the seats.
22
On Sunday morning Mariah went to Mass, then stopped at her father’s grave. He had bought the burial plot ten years ago in a beautiful area that had once been the grounds of a seminary. The headstone was engraved with the family name, LYONS. I have to call and get Dad’s name put on it, she thought as she looked at the fresh dirt over the area where her father’s casket had been lowered.
Phrases from the prayer she had chosen for the memorial cards at the funeral parlor came back to her. “When the fever of life is over and our work is done… may He give us a safe lodging and a holy rest and peace at the last.”
I hope you’re at peace, Daddy, Mariah thought as she fought back tears. But I have to say you’ve left us with a pretty awful problem. I know those detectives believe Mom did this to you. Dad, I just don’t know what to believe. But I do know that if they arrest Mom and she ends up in a psychiatric hospital, she will be destroyed, and then I will have lost both of you.
She started to leave but turned back. “I love you,” she whispered. “I should have tried to be more understanding about Lily. I know how hard everything was on you.”
On the fifteen-minute drive home she began to brace herself for the day. At breakfast her mother had pushed back her chair and said, “I’ll go get your father.” Delia had jumped up to stop her from going upstairs, but Mariah had shaken her head. She knew her mother would resist any effort to stop her.
“Jonathan… Jonathan… ”
Her mother’s voice rose and fell as she went from bedroom to bedroom looking for her husband. Then she slowly came downstairs again. “He’s hiding,” she had said, her expression bewildered. “But he was upstairs just a few minutes ago.”
I’m glad Alvirah and Willy are coming this afternoon, Mariah thought. Mom likes them so much. And she always recognizes them immediately. But as she turned down her parents’ street, she was alarmed to see police cars in their driveway. Sure that something had happened to her mother, she parked on the street, ran along the walk, threw open the front door, and stepped inside to the sound of voices.
Detectives Benet and Rodriguez were in the living room. Three of the drawers of the antique secretary were on the floor. They were going through a fourth that they had placed on the cocktail table. Overhead she could hear the sound of footsteps in the hallway.
“What…,” she began.
Benet looked up. “The chief detective is upstairs, if you want to talk to him. We have a search warrant for these premises, Ms. Lyons,” he said crisply. “Here is a copy of it.”
Mariah ignored the document. “Where is my mother?” she demanded.
“She’s in your father’s study with the caregiver.”
Mariah’s feet felt leaden as she rushed down the hallway. A man who had to be one of the search team was sitting at her father’s desk going through the drawers. As she had feared, her mother was in the closet again, hovering against the back wall, Delia beside her. Her mother’s head was bowed but when she heard Mariah call her, she looked up.
She had a silk scarf tied around her face so that only her blue eyes and forehead showed.
“She won’t let me take it off her,” Delia said apologetically.
Mariah went into the closet. She could feel the eyes of the detective following her. “Mom… Kathleen, it’s too hot to wear that scarf,” she said soothingly. “Whatever made you put it on?”
She knelt down and helped her mother up. “Come on; let’s get rid of that thing.” Her mother let her untie the scarf and lead her from the closet. It was only then that Mariah realized Detectives Benet and Rodriguez had followed her into the study, and from the cynical expression on Benet’s face, she was sure he still believed that her mother was putting on an act.
“Is there any reason why I cannot take my mother and Delia out while the search is going on?” she asked Benet curtly. “We often used to go to brunch at Esty Street in Park Ridge on Sunday mornings.”
“Of course. Just one question: Are these your mother’s sketches? We found them in her room.” He was holding up a sketchbook.
“Yes. It’s one of her few pleasures. She used to be an ardent amateur painter.”
“I see.”
When they got to the restaurant and the waiter began to remove the table setting for a fourth person, her mother stopped him. “My husband is coming,” she said. “Don’t take his plate away.”
The waiter looked at Mariah, knowing she had requested a table for three.
“Just le
ave it, please,” Mariah said.
For the next hour she tried to take consolation in the fact that her mother ate one of the poached eggs she had ordered for her and even remembered that she loved a Bloody Mary at Sunday brunch. Mariah ordered one for her, mouthing the words “without the vodka” to the waiter.
The waiter, a man in his sixties, nodded. “My mother too,” he said quietly.
She deliberately lingered over coffee, hoping against hope that the detectives would have cleared out before they got back home an hour and a half later. The squad cars in the driveway told her that they were still there, but when she went inside, she could see that they were about to leave. Detective Benet handed her an inventory of what they were taking with them. She glanced at it. Papers from her father’s desk. A box of documents that included a file of parchments. And her mother’s sketchbook.
She looked at Benet. “Is that necessary?” she demanded, pointing to the sketchbook. “If my mother looks for this, she’ll be upset that it’s gone.”
“Sorry, Ms. Lyons, we need to take it.”
“I warn you that the parchment file may contain something of indescribable value.”
“We know about the Joseph of Arimathea letter from Christ. I assure you we will find an expert to go through this file very, very carefully.”
Then they were gone.
“Let’s take a nice walk, Kathleen,” Delia suggested. “It’s so beautiful out.”
Kathleen shook her head obstinately.
“Well, then, we’ll just sit on the patio,” Delia said.
“Mom, why don’t you sit outside for a little while?” Mariah suggested. “Alvirah and Willy are coming, and I need to get ready for them.”
“Alvirah and Willy?” Kathleen smiled. “I’ll go outside and wait for them.”