The teasing note disappeared. “Monica, Joy and I have called it quits. It was always wrong. We both realize it now.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Monica said. “But I think you should understand that has absolutely nothing to do with me.”
“It has everything to do with you, Monica. I’ve been quietly seeing an executive search bureau. A top-drawer law firm on Wall Street has offered me a partnership. I’ve accepted.”
“If you have, I hope you realize that there are eight or nine million people in New York City. Make friends with any and all of them, but leave me alone.” Monica broke the connection, then, too upset to sit down again, cleared the table, and finished the demitasse standing at the sink.
6
When she left Monica outside the office on Monday evening, Nan Rhodes took the First Avenue bus to meet four of her sisters for their regular monthly dinner at Neary’s Pub on Fifty-seventh Street.
Widowed for six years, and with her only son and his family living in California, working for Monica had proven to be a godsend to Nan. She loved Monica and at the dinners she would often talk about her. One of eight children herself, she regularly lamented the fact that Monica had no siblings and that her mother and father, both only children, had been in their early forties when she was born and were now deceased.
Tonight, at their usual corner table at Neary’s, over a predinner cocktail, Nan got back on the subject. “While I was waiting for the bus I watched Dr. Monica walking up the block. She’d had such a long day, and I was thinking, poor thing, it’s not like she could get a phone call from her mother or dad to talk things over. It’s such a damn shame that when her father was born in Ireland only the names of his adoptive parents, Anne and Matthew Farrell, were given on the birth certificate. The real parents certainly made it their business to be sure he couldn’t trace them.”
The sisters bobbed their heads in agreement. “Dr. Monica is so classy-looking. Her grandmother probably came from a good family, maybe even an American one,” Nan’s youngest sister, Peggy, volunteered. “In those days if an unmarried girl got pregnant, she was taken on a trip until the baby was born and then it would be given up for adoption, with no one the wiser. Today when an unmarried girl gets pregnant she brags about it on Twitter or Facebook.”
“I know Dr. Monica has lots of friends,” Nan sighed as she picked up the menu. “She has a genius for making people like her, but it’s not the same, is it? No matter what you say, blood is thicker than water.”
Her sisters nodded in solemn unison, although Peggy pointed out that Monica Farrell was a beautiful young woman and it would probably be only a matter of time before she met someone.
That subject exhausted, Nan had a new tidbit to share. “Remember how I told you that that nun Sister Catherine is being considered for beatification because a little boy who was supposed to die of brain cancer was cured after a crusade of prayer to her?”
They all remembered. “He was Dr. Monica’s patient, wasn’t he?” Rosemary, the oldest sister, said.
“Yes. His name is Michael O’Keefe. I guess the Church feels it has enough evidence to prove that he really is a miracle child. And just this afternoon I was able to persuade Dr. Monica to at least give testimony that when she told the parents he was terminal, the mother never blinked an eye before she said her son wasn’t going to die, because she was beginning a crusade of prayer to Sister Catherine.”
“If the mother did say that, why wouldn’t Dr. Monica be willing to testify?” the middle sister, Ellen, asked.
“Because she’s a doctor and a scientist and because she’s still trying to find a way to prove that there was a good medical reason for Michael to be cancer free.”
Liz, their waitress, who had worked at Neary’s for thirty years, was at the table, menus in hand. “Ready to order, girls?” she asked cheerfully.
• • •
Nan enjoyed getting to work at seven A.M. She required little sleep, and lived only minutes away from Monica’s office, in the apartment complex where she had moved after her husband’s death. The early arrival gave her plenty of time to keep up with the mail and work on the endless medical insurance company forms.
Alma Donaldson, the nurse, came in at quarter of nine as Nan was opening the just-delivered mail. A handsome black woman in her late thirties, with a perceptive eye and warm smile, she had worked with Monica from the first day she had opened her practice four years earlier. Together they made an enviable medical team and had become fast friends.
As she took off her outer jacket, Alma was quick to spot the concerned expression on Nan’s face. Nan was sitting at her desk, an envelope in one hand, a photograph in the other. Alma skipped her usual hearty greeting. “What’s wrong, Nan?” she asked.
“Look at this,” Nan said.
Alma walked behind the desk and stood looking down over Nan’s shoulder. “Someone took a picture of the doctor with little Carlos Garcia,” Alma said. “I think it’s sweet.”
“It came in a blank envelope,” Nan said tersely. “I can’t believe his mother or father would have sent it without a note of some kind. And look at this.” She turned over the picture. “Someone printed the doctor’s home and office addresses. That seems awfully peculiar to me.”
“Maybe whoever sent it was trying to decide which address to use,” Alma suggested slowly. “Why don’t you call the Garcias and see if it came from them?”
“I bet the ranch it didn’t,” Nan muttered, as she picked up the phone.
Rosalie Garcia answered on the first ring. No, they hadn’t sent a picture and couldn’t imagine who might have done it. She was planning to frame the one they took of the doctor and Carlos and send it, but she hadn’t had time to buy a frame yet. No, she didn’t know the doctor’s home address.
Monica came in as Nan repeated that conversation to Alma. The nurse and the receptionist exchanged glances and then at Alma’s affirmative nod, Nan slipped the picture back into the envelope and dropped it in her desk drawer.
Later Nan confided to Alma, “There’s a retired detective from the District Attorney’s Office who lives down the hall from me. I’m going to show it to him. Mark my words, Alma, there’s something creepy about that picture.”
“Do you have the right not to show it to the doctor?” Alma asked.
“It’s addressed to ‘occupant,’ not directly to her. I will show it to her, but I’d like to get John Hartman’s opinion first.”
That evening, after phoning her neighbor, Nan walked down the hall to his apartment. Hartman, a seventy-year-old widower with iron gray hair and the weathered complexion of a lifelong golfer, invited her in and listened to her apologetic explanation of why she was bothering him. “Sit down, Nan. You’re not bothering me.”
He went back to his club chair, where the newspapers he’d obviously been reading were piled on the hassock at his feet, and turned the switch on the standing lamp to full strength. As Nan watched intently she saw a frown that deepened on his face, as holding the picture and the envelope with the tips of his fingers, he studied them both.
“Your Dr. Farrell isn’t a juror on some trial, is she?”
“No, she isn’t. Why?”
“There’s probably an explanation but in my business this is the kind of piece of mail we’d consider a warning. Does Dr. Farrell have any enemies?”
“Not one in the world.”
“That’s as far as you know, Nan. You’ve got to show her this picture, and then I’d like to talk to her.”
“I hope she doesn’t think I’m overstepping my bounds,” Nan said anxiously as she got up to go. Then she hesitated. “The only thing that I can think of is that someone from Boston calls her from time to time. His name is Scott Alterman. He’s a lawyer. I don’t know what happened between them but if he calls the office, she never gets on the phone with him.”
“He’d be a good place to start looking,” Hartman said. “Scott Alterman. I’ll do a little background work on him. I used t
o be a pretty good detective.” Then he hesitated. “Dr. Farrell’s a pediatrician, isn’t she?”
“Yes.”
“Has she lost any patients lately? I mean, did a child die unexpectedly where the parents might blame her?”
“No, on the contrary, she’s being asked to testify about one of her patients who was terminal and not only is still living but is cured of brain cancer.”
“I didn’t think that was possible, but at least we know that family isn’t going to be responsible for stalking Dr. Farrell.” John Hartman bit his tongue. He had not planned to use that word but something in his gut was telling him that someone out there was stalking the young doctor who was Nan’s employer.
He reached out his hand. “Nan,” he said. “Give that back to me. Did anyone besides you handle the picture?”
“No.”
“I’ve got absolutely nothing important to do tomorrow. I’m going to take it down to headquarters and see if I can pick up any discernible fingerprints. It’s probably a waste of time, but then again you never know. You wouldn’t mind my taking your fingerprints, would you? Just for comparison purposes. It would only take a minute and I still have a kit in my desk.”
“Of course I don’t mind.” She tried to stifle her rising anxiety.
Less than ten minutes later, Nan was back in her own apartment. John Hartman had promised to return the picture to her by tomorrow evening. “You should show it to Dr. Farrell,” he said. “It’s up to you whether or not to say you gave it to me.”
“I’m not sure what I’ll do,” she had replied, but now as she locked and bolted her door she found herself thinking of how vulnerable Monica Farrell was in her apartment. That kitchen door to the patio has a big window, Nan thought. Anybody could slice out the glass and reach in and open the lock. I’ve already warned her she should have a much stronger grille over that window.
Nan did not sleep well that night. Her dreams were haunted by distorted images of Monica standing on the steps of the hospital, Carlos in her arms, with her long blond hair streaming on her shoulders, then coiling like tentacles around her neck.
7
It was late afternoon of the day after his meeting with Sammy Barber before fifty-two-year-old Douglas Langdon realized that the photograph he had snapped of Monica Farrell was missing. He was in his corner office on Park Avenue and Fifty-first Street when the nagging sensation that something was wrong became defined in his mind.
Glancing at the door to be sure it was closed, he stood up and emptied the pockets of his expensively tailored suit. His billfold was always in the right-hand back pocket of his trousers. He took it out and laid it on his desk. Except for a clean white handkerchief the pocket was now empty.
But I wasn’t wearing this suit last night, he thought hopefully. I was wearing the dark gray. Then, dismayed, he remembered he had dropped it in the cleaner bag for his housekeeper to give to the in-house valet service. I emptied out the pockets, he thought. I always do. The picture wasn’t there or I would have noticed it.
There was only one time he’d had any reason to reach for his billfold and that was when he paid for the coffee in the diner. He had either pulled the picture out then, or less likely, it might have slipped out of the pocket and fallen somewhere between the diner and where he had parked his car.
Suppose someone found it, he wondered. It has two addresses on the back. No name, but two addresses in my handwriting. Most people would just throw it away, but suppose some do-gooder tries to return it?
Every instinct told him the picture could cause trouble. Lou’s was the name of that diner in Queens where he’d met Sammy. He reached for the phone, and after a moment was speaking to Lou, the owner.
“We don’t have no picture—but wait a minute, a kid who works for me is here, and said something about a customer losing something last night. I’ll put him on.”
Three long minutes passed, then Hank Moss began with an apology. “I was just bringing out the orders for a table of six. Sorry to have kept you waiting.”
The kid sounded smart. Doug Langdon tried to sound casual. “It’s not important, but I think I dropped my daughter’s picture last night when I was at the diner.”
“Is she blond, with long hair and holding a little kid?”
“Yes,” Doug said. “I’ll send my friend over for it. He lives near the diner.”
“I actually don’t have the picture.” Hank’s voice was now nervous. “I could see that one of the addresses on the back seemed to be an office, so I addressed it to ‘occupant’ and sent it there. I hope that was all right?”
“It was very thoughtful. Thank you.” Doug replaced the receiver, not noticing that his palm was moist and his whole body felt clammy. What would Monica Farrell think when she saw that picture? Fortunately both her home and office addresses were listed in the phone book. If her home address on East Thirty-sixth Street were unlisted, it probably would have tipped her off that someone might be stalking her.
There was, of course, a simple and plausible solution. Someone who knew her snapped that picture of her holding the kid, and thought she might like to have it.
“There’s no reason for her to be suspicious,” Doug said aloud softly, then realized he was trying to reassure himself.
The muted ring of the intercom interrupted his reflections. He pushed a button on the phone. “What is it?” he asked abruptly.
“Dr. Langdon, Mr. Gannon’s secretary called to remind you that you are to introduce him tonight at the dinner for Troubled Teens honoring him . . .”
“I don’t need to be reminded,” Doug interrupted irritably.
Beatrice Tillman, his secretary, ignored the interruption. “And Linda Coleman phoned to say she’s caught in traffic and will be late for her four o’clock session with you.”
“She wouldn’t be late if she had left in enough time to get here.”
“I agree, Doctor,” Beatrice, long used to coaxing her attractive and long-time divorced boss out of a bad mood, said with a smile in her voice. “As you always tell me, with patients like Linda Coleman, you need to see a psychiatrist yourself.”
Douglas Langdon turned off the intercom without responding. A chilling thought had come to him. His fingerprints were on that picture he had taken of Monica Farrell. When something happened to her, if that picture was still around, the police might test it for prints.
There was no question of calling Sammy off. How do I work this out? Doug asked himself.
He had no answer when three hours later, at the Pierre Hotel on Fifth Avenue, seated at the table of honor at the black-tie dinner honoring Greg Gannon, he was asked quietly, “The meeting yesterday evening was satisfactory?”
Doug nodded affirmatively, then, as his name was announced, he arose and strode to the microphone to deliver his speech praising Gregory Gannon, president of the Gannon Investment Firm and as Chairman of the Board of the Gannon Foundation, one of New York City’s most generous philanthropists.
8
On Tuesday morning, Olivia woke early, but did not get up for nearly an hour. Then, slipping on a robe, she went into the kitchen. She always made a fresh pot of tea to start the day. When it was ready, she set the pot and a cup on a tray and carried it into the bedroom. She set the tray on the night table and, propped on pillows, sipped the tea as she gazed down at the Hudson River.
Her thoughts were scattered. She knew there were boats still anchored to buoys in the yacht basin on Seventy-ninth Street. In a few weeks most of them will be gone, she thought, and so will I. I’ve often wondered what it would be like to go sailing. I had thought that someday I’d get around to it.
And also to taking lessons in ballroom dancing, she added, smiling at the thought. And what about all the college courses I meant to sign up for? Of course, none of that matters now. I should start counting my blessings. I had a successful career working at a job I loved. Since I retired, I’ve traveled a lot, and have enjoyed deep friendships . . .
As she sav
ored the last of the tea, Olivia turned her mind back to the pressing problem of what to do about the evidence in her safe. Clay absolutely wants me to let it go, she thought, but when the chips are down it’s none of his business, even if he is on the board of the Gannon Foundation. Catherine was my cousin. And Clay had no right to walk in here Monday evening, no matter how concerned he may be about me.
Of course when Mother died I agreed with him that it was better to leave things as they were, she reminded herself, but that was before the miracle of Catherine’s saving the little boy’s life, and before the beatification process began.
What would she want me to do? For an instant Catherine’s face was crystal clear in Olivia’s mind. Catherine at seventeen, with that long blond hair, and those eyes the blue green of the sea on a spring morning. Even when I was only five years old I was smart enough to know how truly beautiful she was.
A thought crossed her mind: Clay saw that file folder in my hand with Catherine’s name on it. He’s the executor of my estate, such as it is. When I’m gone, if I haven’t resolved this one way or the other myself, I wouldn’t be surprised if when he opens the safe he gets rid of the file. He would think he was doing the right thing. But is it the right thing?
Olivia got up, showered, and dressed in her favorite casual outfit: slacks, a tailored blouse, and a warm cardigan sweater. Over toast and a third cup of tea, she tried to decide what to do. She was still unsure as she tidied up the kitchen and made the bed.
Then the answer came to her suddenly. She would visit Catherine’s grave in Rhinebeck, where she was buried on the grounds of the motherhouse of her order, the Community of St. Francis. Maybe I’ll get a sense of what she would want me to do there, Olivia thought. It’s a pretty good drive, at least two hours, but once I’m out of the city, the country is so pretty. I’ll enjoy it.