“Surely you can spare a half hour to have something to eat,” Anne protested.
At that moment there was a brief ring of the doorbell and then the door opened.
As Lane had feared, it was Eric. He was wearing a trench coat with the collar turned up. His hair was tousled from the wind. He was carrying a bag of groceries. He looked at her, smiled, and said, “Hello, Lane. Did Katie get my letter?”
“Yes she did. That was so nice of you.”
“Does she know how to make oatmeal cookies?”
“She does now. And I must be on my way.”
“You can’t be. I brought in lunch for the three of us. You’ll be out of here in forty-five minutes. I promise, because I have to leave by then too.”
Anne Bennett was looking at her expectantly. “Please stay, Lane. I was looking forward to visiting with you.”
Lane remembered Glady’s warning, then brushed it aside. “I’d love to stay,” she said. “What can I do to help?”
“Nothing,” Eric said promptly. “You and Mother talk to me and I’ll get everything ready. I bought chicken noodle soup and had them make up a small assortment of sandwiches,” Eric announced as they went into the dinette. “How does that sound, Mom?”
“It sounds good to me, dear.”
Lane saw that Anne Bennett had perceptibly brightened since Eric came in.
“How’s Glady Harper?” was Anne’s first question as she and Lane got settled at the table.
“Glady is Glady,” Lane said, then added, “a perfectionist, as you know, very smart, and underneath her intimidating exterior, a very nice person.”
“I certainly appreciate how kind she has been to me,” Anne said quietly. “I don’t know any other decorator who not only would select the furniture but also redo my bedroom.” She looked at Eric, who was putting a bowl of soup on the table. “Don’t you agree, Eric?”
“In a way I do, Mother,” Eric said. “On the other hand, she made so much money when she decorated our house ten years ago that I don’t think you need to go overboard being grateful to her.”
The words seemed harsh to Lane, but they were said in a gentle voice, and she could see the affection in Eric’s eyes as he looked at his mother.
The soup was delicious and a reminder that she had slept a little later this morning and had been behind schedule giving Katie breakfast. When Bettina had arrived to walk Katie to preschool, she had not yet brushed her hair and put on the little makeup she habitually wore to work. Because she was coming out here, she had driven her car and parked near the office. In the car, when she stopped for a red light, she had put on some blush and twisted her hair and fastened it up with a comb, but she knew it was not the best hairdressing job.
Eric made some coffee and Lane said, “I’m afraid I don’t have time for more than a few sips before I leave.”
“I so enjoyed visiting with you,” Anne said, “and Eric has told me about your adorable little girl.”
“She’s pretty special,” Lane agreed. “I have to admit that. I’ll be back,” she said, changing the subject. “I want to take the small pillows on the couch and chairs in the living room. They look a bit tired and it will be very easy for us to replace them.”
And what will Glady have to say about that? she wondered, and then stood up.
“Glady will be at the window looking for me. I really have to go. I’ll collect the pillows and be on my way.”
“I’ll take them out to your car,” Eric said.
Lane could have bitten her tongue. This meant they would be alone for a few moments and she didn’t want that. Being with him made her realize how intensely she had hoped that he would call her for another dinner date.
After he had put the pillows in the backseat of the car, he interrupted her quick “Thanks, Eric,” as she turned the ignition key.
“Lane,” he said with his eyes focused intently on her face. “You must have realized how very much I enjoyed having dinner with you.”
“It was very pleasant,” she agreed evasively. “And now I really have to be off.”
“Lane, it was more than very pleasant. It was special, and I think you felt that too. I can’t tell you how many times I turned on my phone to call you and then turned it off again.”
“Why did you do that?” she asked, even though she instinctively knew the answer.
“I didn’t call you because I’m Eric Bennett, son of Parker Bennett, master crook. You certainly have seen the headlines this past week. My father’s secretary has been indicted. That’s started a rehash of the case. Poor Eleanor is no more a thief than I am. You must have noticed that my mother looked pretty pale today. She’s been reading all that stuff in the tabloids about my father’s affairs, especially with Countess de la Marco. It’s tearing her apart.”
He paused. “Lane, I’ll say it straight. The paparazzi have me in their crosshairs. If you go out to dinner with me, you may end up in the gossip columns. You’re the stepdaughter of a powerful columnist who hates my guts.”
“And I’m the daughter of a congressman who absolutely despised guilt by association,” Lane said crisply. “Eric, I get the message that you want to have dinner with me. How about Saturday night at eight o’clock?”
For an answer, Eric leaned in the car and kissed her forehead. “Saturday at eight,” he said. “You say that Katie is making oatmeal cookies now. Put my order in for two.”
“I shall.”
As she backed the car out of the driveway, she could see in the rearview mirror that Tony Russo was waiting to pull his car into the driveway. She waved as she passed him.
As Jon waved back, she could not know that he was thinking, How could she get involved with that lowlife? Is she out of her mind?
23
On Wednesday afternoon Sean Cunningham drove up the West Side Highway to visit Eleanor Becker in Yonkers, New York. It was a relatively short distance. No traffic, about forty minutes, Sean thought. Usual traffic, an hour and a quarter.
Actually he liked driving and used the time in the car to go over in his mind the best way he could help Eleanor through her ordeal. There was not a question in his mind that a jury would find her guilty as a co-conspirator to Parker Bennett. That meant she might be sentenced to as little as five years or as much as fifteen or even longer.
It was impossible that Parker Bennett committed the theft without help, and she was the most likely suspect. It should have been Parker’s son, Sean thought, but they haven’t a shred of evidence against him.
The Becker house was only fifteen minutes from the Yonkers exit off the Saw Mill River Parkway. It was on a street with older, well-kept homes. The last time he had been here the trees had been abundant with leaves that had softened the fact that Eleanor and Frank’s house badly needed a paint job.
Now there were dead leaves scattered on the lawn and he could see that the gutters were overflowing with them.
Shaking his head, he rang the bell. The door was opened immediately. Eleanor was almost unrecognizable. The sweater and slacks she was wearing hung off her gaunt frame. Her hair was pure white and held back from her face with bobby pins. She was a shadow of the woman he had seen six months ago.
“Come in, Sean,” she said. “Come in.” Tears began to spill from her eyes. “It’s so nice of you to come. Most people are avoiding me. Remember in the Bible, the lepers had to shout ‘Unclean, unclean,’ if anyone came near them?”
“Yes I do,” Sean said, “but, Eleanor, you are not unclean and you know it.”
“I do know it, and what good does that do me?”
She led the way into the small den where Frank was sitting in a reclining chair. “Hi, doctor, good of you to come.”
His voice sounded cheerful but Sean was sure it was a false bravado for Eleanor’s benefit. How could it be anything else? he asked himself.
He got straight to the point. “I’ve been trying to decide how I can help you,” he told them.
“There is no way to help me,” E
leanor said, dabbing at her eyes.
“Eleanor, I want you to think hard. It’s obvious Parker had this scheme going for the entire thirteen years his fund existed. What I want is for you to go over it in your mind and see if you can remember any time that you felt something seemed odd to you. I know it’s asking a lot, but it’s hard to believe that at least once in that time Parker didn’t slip in some way.”
Eleanor shook her head. “I don’t think so. I really don’t.”
Sean stayed for an hour and had a cup of tea with them. He could see that the realization that he absolutely believed in Eleanor’s innocence was a comfort to both of them.
But being a comfort to them isn’t the same as helping them, he thought as he drove home in the gloomy, cloud-filled afternoon that was a reflection of his state of mind.
24
At 26 Federal Plaza Rudy Schell stared in frustration at the newspapers on his desk. Besides the ones from New York, there were the Washington Post, the Chicago Tribune, the Los Angeles Times, and the San Francisco Examiner.
On every front page there was a picture of Parker Bennett and Eleanor Becker.
Rudy had interviewed Becker a half dozen times and had tried every trick in the book to trip her up on her story.
Every instinct told him that she was not involved in the fraud. He had expressed his opinion to the prosecutor, who did not agree and had gone to the grand jury to get an indictment. She may be dumb, he thought, but she’s not a crook.
He corrected himself. She may not be dumb, but she sure is naïve if she never for one minute wondered about Bennett’s consistently high annual returns to the investors.
The two people who might be in touch with Parker Bennett if he was still alive were his son, Eric, and his girlfriend, Sally Chico, alias Countess Sylvie de la Marco.
They had been investigated up and down and no agency had been able to pin anything on them. Of course it was entirely possible, even probable, that they had unregistered prepaid phones that could not be traced. Yesterday there had been an item in one of the gossip columns saying that famed interior decorator Glady Harper was redecorating the countess’s duplex.
That meant she would be in and out of the apartment frequently. Would it work for him to ask Harper to keep her eyes and ears open when she was there? Would she cooperate with them, or have some kind of loyalty to her client and tell her that she had been approached by the FBI to spy on her? He would have to weigh the decision.
Now to figure out who could keep tabs on Eric Bennett.
That would be harder. As far as any investigator could see, he had been something of a lone wolf since the scandal broke. Hard to tell if it was his choice to withdraw from the University Club and the Racquet and Tennis Club, or if it had been suggested to him that it would be appropriate for him to withdraw. They had gotten permission to wire his mother’s town house in the hope that she or Eric might say something that would help them find Parker Bennett.
Rudy had Googled Glady Harper. There were volumes about her. She had redecorated the second floor of the White House, where the presidential family lived. Famously known for her blunt appraisals, she had said of the painting of Dolley Madison’s sister on the wall of the Queen’s Bedroom, “That woman was so homely the queen must have turned it around on the wall at night.”
Schell noted that she had also redecorated Blair House, where visiting royalty now stayed during a state visit, and had won any number of awards in interior design.
Ten years ago, Harper had decorated the baronial mansion of Parker Bennett in Greenwich. Now she was decorating the apartment of Countess Sylvie de la Marco in Manhattan. It was common knowledge that the countess had had a long-running affair with Parker Bennett.
Schell had to wonder: was she in touch with him now?
25
Countess Sylvie de la Marco had been born with the survival instinct of her hardscrabble background. That was what had transformed her from Sally Chico of Staten Island to the holder of a title and a luxury apartment on Fifth Avenue. But now that background was giving her a warning, and it had to do with Parker.
Of course people had guessed that for many years she and Parker had been an item even though they had been very discreet about their affair. In public they only went out in a group. From time to time there had been blind items about it: “Which financier was holding hands under the table at Le Cirque with what titled socialite?”
She had always made it her business to attend social events with some divorced male celebrities to further keep talk about Parker and her down.
But now, since Parker’s secretary had been indicted, not only the gossip columns but even the news reports were openly stating that she and Parker were alleged to have been involved with each other for years.
Sylvie knew that she had been under close scrutiny ever since Parker had disappeared. But the fact that the de la Marco family was known to be worth a fortune had been in her favor. The prenup records were sealed, so no one knew how much she had gotten from Eduardo’s estate. She had always been careful about discussing it.
When she had a couple of scotches, she had complained to a few close friends that she could kick herself for signing a prenup that only gave her lifetime use of the apartment, maintenance of it, and a monthly allowance.
Of course she had never intended that she wouldn’t get more. She had been sure that she would have been able to get Eduardo to tear up the prenup, but that had not happened.
Another bone of contention was that in their four-year marriage, she could never get Eduardo to let her redecorate. Then when he died, the decorator she got made no suggestions, just followed her instructions. Everything was all wrong, Sylvie admitted to herself. That’s why the columnists call it the brass cage. The decorator’s only virtue was that she was cheap.
But had it been stupid to start a five-million-dollar renovation now? Parker had always been generous, but he had been furious when he realized that she had gone through his wallet and found the receipt in the name of George Hawkins for the dinghy and outboard motor as well as the address and phone number in St. Thomas. She had made a copy of it. Just a hunch, she thought, but boy did it work out!
Parker disappeared the next day. A week later she had tried the phone number and reached him.
It amused her that he almost dropped dead when she called him.
He had taken off with five billion dollars. The money she had requested him to send was a drop in the bucket compared with what he had. So why had he sounded so angry when she called him and asked for more money last week?
He had never been cheap with her. Every piece of jewelry she wore had been a gift from Parker. In the prenup she had also agreed that any de la Marco gems Eduardo gave her were to be returned to the family after his death.
Once the interior decorating was finished, she would take it easy on Parker.
Sylvie made that decision sitting in a satin robe in the library, as she was picking at the breakfast that the butler, Robert, had placed before her.
She had sipped the chilled fresh orange juice and had a few bites of the fruit. But it was the coffee she really wanted. Robert had poured the first cup. She could have rung the bell that would have sent him scurrying from wherever he was to serve her, but instead she lifted the silver coffeepot and poured the second cup herself.
It was good to have a staff attending to her 24/7. Robert also served as her chauffeur in the Mercedes S500. Much as she wanted to have a Rolls, she had listened to Parker’s warning, “Sylvie, stay under the radar.”
Mrs. Carson, the housekeeper, was from the old school, as Parker used to say about her. “Yes, ma’am.” “No, ma’am.” She was quiet and diligent. Age sixty to one hundred, as Parker used to put it. But of course Mrs. Carson only saw him when she had a dinner party for six or more people.
The private entrance from the street and private elevator ensured Parker’s visits alone with her were discreet. Neither Mrs. Carson nor Carla, the maid, nor Robert stayed
overnight. If Parker was coming for dinner or to stay over, he arrived after they left and was out in the morning before they arrived. Chez Francis, the five-star restaurant on the lobby floor, would send up dinner and then remove it later.
Parker would wait in the library with the door closed when the restaurant service arrived and was taken away. So the staff never could be sure if the same person was her frequent guest. But now their affair was out for one and all to see—including the federal government. If they didn’t know about it before, they knew about it now.
She would have to be very careful. She would dismiss any questions about her relationship with Parker as meaningless gossip. She would not call him for more money until she needed to pay Glady Harper more.
But she shouldn’t be so worried. Parker must have seen those newspapers too. And he certainly knew that if promised immunity from prosecution, she could turn him in and collect the considerable reward for information leading to his apprehension. She might have to remind him of that.
There was a light tap on the library door, followed by Robert’s opening it.
“Ms. Harper is here, Countess,” he announced. “Shall I send her in?”
“That won’t be necessary. Let her go ahead with anything she plans to do today. Tell her if she has any specific questions for me, I will receive her after I am dressed.”
That will put her in her place, Sylvie thought with satisfaction. She may be a good decorator, but I’m the one paying the bills and I don’t need to put up with her nasty little comments.
26
The bell rang at promptly eight o’clock on Saturday evening. Before Lane could stop her, with a whoop of delight, Katie ran to open the door.
“Katie, are you the official greeter?” Eric Bennett asked with a smile.