The Lost Years

by Mary Higgins Clark

  Alone, Mariah began to tidy up the living room where the detectives had not completely closed the drawers of the secretary and had pushed aside the vase and candles on the cocktail table. The dining room chairs they had drawn up to it were still there. Next she went into her father’s study. The top of the big antique desk that had been his pride and joy was now littered with some of the contents of the drawers. I guess what they left here wasn’t evidence, she thought angrily. It seemed to her that the essence of her father had been taken from the room. The bright afternoon sun revealed the worn spots on the carpet. The books that he had kept in meticulous order were piled haphazardly on the shelves. The pictures of her mother and father, and herself with both of them, had been turned down as though they had been a nuisance to the prying eyes of the detective she had seen here.

  She straightened out the study, then went upstairs, where it was obvious that all the rooms had been thoroughly searched. It was five o’clock when the house was finally put back together, and from the window of her bedroom she saw Willy and Alvirah’s Buick parking in the driveway.

  She was at the front door opening it before they reached the front steps. “I’m so glad to see you two,” she said fervently as Alvirah’s comforting arms went around her.

  “I’m so sorry we were away this week of all weeks, Mariah,” Alvirah said. “I was wringing my hands that I was in the middle of the ocean and couldn’t be with you.”

  “Well, you’re here now and that’s what counts,” Mariah replied as they went inside the house. “Mother and Delia are on the patio. I heard them talking a minute ago, so Mother’s awake. She fell asleep on the couch out there, which is good because she hasn’t been sleeping much at all since Dad was—” Mariah stopped, her lips unable to form the word she had planned to say, “murdered.”

  Willy hurried to fill in the void. “Nobody gets much sleep when there’s a death in the family,” he said heartily. He hurried ahead and opened the sliding glass door that led from the living room to the patio. “Hello, Kathleen, hello, Delia. You girls getting the sun?”

  Kathleen’s delighted laugh was enough reassurance for Mariah that Willy would keep her mother occupied for at least a few minutes. “Alvirah, before we go out, I have to tell you. The police were here this morning with a search warrant. I think they’ve gone through every piece of paper in this house. They took the parchments my father was translating. I warned them that one of them might be an invaluable antiquity, a letter Christ wrote to Joseph of Arimathea. My father may have found it among that batch and believed it to be authentic.”

  Alvirah’s eyes widened. “Mariah, are you serious?”

  “Yes. Father Aiden told me about it at the funeral on Friday. Dad saw him the Wednesday before he died.”

  “Did Lillian Stewart know about this parchment?” Alvirah demanded.

  “I don’t know. I suspect he would have told her about it. For all I know she has it.”

  Alvirah brushed her hand against her shoulder, turning on her hidden microphone. I can’t miss or misunderstand a word, she thought. Already her mind was awhirl.

  Jonathan saw Father Aiden on Wednesday afternoon. Suppose Jonathan told him that he had decided to end the relationship with Lillian? Lillian saw Jonathan Wednesday night. Did he go straight up there, and if he did, what did he say to her? According to Lily, they never saw each other again and did not speak to each other in those five days.

  Was she lying? Alvirah wondered. As I told Willy yesterday, somebody’s got to get the phone records of any calls from Jonathan to Lillian and from her to him between Wednesday and Monday night. If there aren’t any, it says to me that Jonathan told her it was quits…

  It was too soon to suggest all this to Mariah. Instead, Alvirah said, “Mariah, let’s make a cup of tea and you try to catch me up on everything.”

  “‘Everything’ is that I know the detectives believe my mother killed my father. ‘Everything’ is that I wouldn’t be surprised if they arrested her,” Mariah said, trying to keep her voice steady.

  As she spoke, the doorbell rang. “Pray God those detectives aren’t back,” she murmured as she went to answer it.

  It was Lloyd Scott. He did not mince words. “Mariah, I just got a call from Detective Benet. Your mother is being charged as we speak. He is allowing me to take her down to the prosecutor’s office in Hackensack to surrender her, but we have to go now. She’ll be fingerprinted and photographed there and then they will admit her to the jail. I am so sorry.”

  “But they can’t put her in jail now,” Mariah protested. “My God, Lloyd, can’t they understand her condition?”

  “My guess is that, in addition to setting the amount of bail, the judge will order that she have a psychiatric evaluation before releasing her so that he can set appropriate conditions of bail. That means that by tonight or tomorrow, she’ll be in a psychiatric hospital. She won’t be coming home, at least not for a while.”

  At the back of the house, Willy, Kathleen, and Delia were coming in from the patio. “So much noise… so much blood,” Kathleen was telling Willy, this time in a lighthearted singsong voice.

  23

  His secret retreat was in a seemingly vacant warehouse on the far eastern side of lower Manhattan. The upper-level windows of the warehouse were boarded. The metal front door was padlocked. In order to enter and exit, he had to drive around to the back, past an old loading dock, to a set of double-wide rusted metal garage doors that to anyone passing would look sagging and broken. But when the doors were opened with a remote he kept in his car, he could drive straight forward into the cavernous cement first floor.

  He had gotten out of his car and was standing there now in that vast, dust-filled, empty space. If by any horrible mishap someone else ever managed to get in there, that person would find nothing.

  He walked over to the back wall, the sound of his heels echoing in the stillness. He leaned down, pushed aside a grimy electrical outlet cover, and touched a hidden button. A lift slowly descended from the ceiling. When it reached the ground, he stepped onto it, then pushed another button. Slowly as the lift rose up, he closed his eyes briefly and readied himself to return to the past. When it stopped, he took a long breath in anticipation and crossed over the threshold. He switched on the light and once again was with his treasures, the antiquities he had stolen or purchased clandestinely.

  The windowless room was as vast as the one below. But that was the only similarity. In the center of the space was a carpet gloriously bright with intricate figures and designs. A couch, chairs, lamps, and end tables were grouped on it, a mini–living room amid a treasure-filled museum. Statues, paintings, wall hangings, and cabinets containing pottery and jewelry and table settings crowded every inch of space.

  Immediately he began to feel the calmness that being surrounded by the past always brought to him. He was desperate to linger there but it was not possible. He could not even visit the upper two floors now.

  He did allow himself to sit on the couch for just a few minutes. His glance darted from one object in his collection to the next as he feasted his eyes on the extraordinary beauty around him.

  But none of it meant anything if he did not own the Joseph of Arimathea letter. Jonathan had shown it to him. He knew instantly that it was genuine. There was no possibility that it was a forgery. A letter written two thousand years ago by the Christ. It made the Magna Carta, the Constitution, and the Declaration of Independence worthless in comparison. Nothing, nothing, would or could ever be more valuable. He had to have it.

  His cell phone rang. It was the prepaid kind and could not be traced to him. He only gave the number to one person, then discarded it and bought a new one as needed. “Why are you calling me?” he asked.

  “It just came over the news. Kathleen has been arrested and charged with Jonathan’s murder. Isn’t that a good break for you?”

  “It was utterly unnecessary for you to contact me about something I would have learned myself in a short time.” His
voice was cold, but he also recognized that it showed a measure of alarm. She could not be trusted. Worse, it was clear that she had a growing sense of power over him.

  He terminated the call. Then for long minutes that he could not afford to take, he considered the best way to handle the situation.

  When he had thought it all through, he called her back and made an appointment to meet with her again.

  Soon.

  24

  On Sunday evening Lillian Stewart reflected with great relief on her decision not to admit to the police that Jonathan had given her the parchment for safekeeping. She had already been contacted separately by two members of the dinner group. Each had told her flatly that if she had the parchment, he could quietly find her a buyer—and for a lot of money.

  Her first instinct had been to tell the police that she had the parchment. She knew that if it was what Jonathan thought it was, it belonged in the Vatican Library. But then she thought of the five years she had given to Jonathan with nothing to show for it now except a lot of heartache. I’m entitled to whatever I can get for it, she thought bitterly. When I sell it to one of them, I want the money in cash, she decided. No wire transfer. If two million dollars suddenly shows up in my savings account, I know that the bank has to report that to the government. I’ll just put the cash in my safe-deposit box and take it out gradually, so that if they do check me out, I won’t be raising any red flags.

  What would it be like to have two million dollars at my disposal? I still would rather have Jonathan, she thought sadly, but since I don’t, I’m going to do it this way.

  Lillian looked at the clock. It was five of six. She went into the kitchen, poured a glass of wine, and carried it into the den. She curled up on the sofa and clicked on the television. The six o’clock news would be coming on in a couple of minutes.

  If Mom were alive, I know what she would think of all of this, she told herself. Mom was the smart one. Dad was such a loser. He did have an impressive name, Prescott Stewart. I guess by giving him a name like that, Granny thought that he might make something of himself.

  Lillian’s father had been twenty-one and her mother had just turned eighteen when they eloped. Her mother had been desperate to get out of the house—her own father was a hopeless alcoholic who had physically and emotionally abused both her and her mother.

  Mom leapt from the frying pan into the fire, Lillian thought. Dad was a compulsive gambler. They never had two nickels to rub together, but Mom stuck with him until I was eighteen because she was afraid he would fight her for custody of me. I know if she were here she would tell me firmly that the parchment belongs in the Vatican Library. The fact that I would even think of keeping it would infuriate her. I guess I have more of my father in me than I realized.

  It’s kind of crazy, she thought. The main reason that Jonathan wouldn’t divorce Kathleen was because he knew Mariah would never speak to him again if he did. Mom would never speak to me again if she knew I was doing this, but unfortunately I don’t have to worry about her reaction. I still do miss her so much.

  The pain of that afternoon when Jonathan had phoned to say he was coming to speak to her washed over her again.

  “Lily, there’s no easy way to say this, but I have to stop seeing you.”

  He sounded as if he had been crying, but his voice had been resolute, Lillian thought angrily. He loved me so much that he dumped me, and then got shot despite all his noble intentions to repair his relationship with Mariah and dedicate himself to taking care of Kathleen.

  He and his wife had had forty good years together before Kathleen got sick. Wasn’t that enough for her? For the last few years, she didn’t even know who he was most of the time. What was Jonathan staying for? Why couldn’t he understand that he owed me something too? And eventually it would have been okay with Mariah—she knew how bad her mother had been and what her father was going through. Even she must be honest enough to realize that she didn’t have to deal with it every minute, day in and day out, like he did.

  The six o’clock news was coming on. Lillian looked up to see that the lead story was about Jonathan’s death. The area around the courthouse was filled with media. The CBS on-scene reporter said, “I am standing on the steps of the Bergen County courthouse in Hackensack, New Jersey. As you can see from the video, and this was taken just about an hour ago, seventy-year-old Kathleen Lyons, accompanied by prominent defense counsel Lloyd Scott, and her daughter, Mariah Lyons, walked into the courthouse and up to the second floor, where she surrendered in the office of the Bergen County prosecutor. After an almost weeklong investigation, she has been charged with the murder of her husband, retired NYU professor Jonathan Lyons, who was found dead in his home in Mahwah last week. It has been reported that Kathleen Lyons, whom sources say has advanced Alzheimer’s disease, was found crouched in a closet, clutching the gun that killed him.”

  The tape showed Kathleen walking slowly into the courthouse, between her lawyer and her daughter, each supporting one of her arms. For once, Rory the caregiver isn’t on the scene, Lillian thought. I never did like her. She always had that expression that meant, “I know your secret,” when she looked at me. I swear I blame her for all the problems. Jonathan told me he had hidden the pictures of us in a fake book in his study. How did Kathleen ever manage to find that one book, with all of the others that he had in his study? I can guess what happened. Good old Rory nosed around, and when she found the photos, she showed them to Kathleen. She’s a born troublemaker.

  As the clip ended, the reporter excitedly indicated that Lloyd Scott and Mariah Lyons were now leaving the courthouse. Mariah looks devastated, Lillian thought. Well, that makes two of us. As microphones were shoved in Mariah’s face, Lloyd Scott protectively pushed them away. “I just have a few words to say and that will be it,” he said tersely. “Kathleen Lyons will be in court at nine o’clock tomorrow morning before Judge Kenneth Brown. She will plead not guilty to the charges. The judge will also be addressing the subject of bail at that time.” His arm around Mariah, Lloyd hurried her down the steps and into a waiting car.

  I wish I could be a fly on the wall in that car, Lillian thought. What’s Mariah going to do now? Cry? Scream? Kind of like I felt when Jonathan so nobly decided that I was expendable. I felt like a beggar, crying and screaming, “This is it? What about me? What about me?”

  She thought about the parchment. It was hidden in her safe-deposit box in the bank, just two blocks away. There were people who wanted it desperately.

  How much would they pay, she wondered, if she did a sort of silent auction for it?

  When Jonathan showed it to her three weeks ago, she had seen the awe and reverence in his face. Then he asked her if she had a safe-deposit box where she could keep it until he made the arrangements to have it returned to the Vatican.

  “Lily, it’s the simplest of letters. Christ knew what was going to happen. He knew that Joseph of Arimathea would ask for His body after the Crucifixion. He is thanking Joseph for all the kindness he has given Him all of His life.

  “Of course the Vatican will want to have their own biblical scholars authenticate the letter. I want to meet with them, hand it over personally, and discuss my reasons for believing it is the document I think it is.”

  When he was here for the last time, Jonathan wanted me to meet him at my bank the next morning so that I could get the parchment and give it to him. I stalled him, Lillian thought. I was desperate to give him a chance to see how much he’d miss me. I told him I’d give it to him in a week if he still felt the same way. And then he was dead.

  A commercial was coming on. She turned off the television and looked at the prepaid cell phone Jonathan had given her. It was on the coffee table. I’d use up the minutes and then buy more, she thought. I’d call him on his own prepaid phone. Anything to prove I didn’t exist.

  And now I have three of them, she thought drearily.

  The third prepaid phone had been given to her by one of the bidders for the p
archment. “We don’t want to leave any trail,” he warned her. “The cops are going to be looking for that parchment. You have to know they suspect you have it or you know where it is. Too many phone calls between us would get their attention.”

  Whenever she touched it, it felt cold in her hand.

  25

  Professor Richard Callahan frequently had dinner on Sunday evenings with his parents in the Park Avenue apartment where he had been raised. They were cardiologists who shared a practice and whose names regularly appeared on those “Best Doctors” lists.

  Both were sixty years old, but physically they could not have been more different.

  His mother, Jessica, was small and slender, with chin-length dark blond hair, which she pushed back with the glasses that usually rested on the top of her head.

  His father, Sean, had a mass of curly salt-and-pepper hair, a trim beard, and a tall, muscular frame that was a tribute both to his days of being a star defensive end on the Notre Dame football team and the discipline of his daily workouts.

  Richard did not realize how quiet he had been until he and his father finished watching the Mets-Phillies game. When his mother went into the kitchen to check on dinner, his father got up, poured two glasses of sherry, lowered the volume on the television, and bluntly said, “Richard, it’s obvious you’re worried about something. That game went down to the last minute. Yet you sat there like a bump on a log. Now, what is bothering you?”

  Richard attempted a smile. “No, Dad, it’s not that I’m actually worried. I’ve been thinking a lot about the trust fund that my grandfather set up for me when I was born. Since four years ago, when I turned thirty, I’ve been free to use the money whatever way I want.”

  “That’s right, Richard. It’s too bad you never got to know your grandfather. You were just a baby when he died. He was one of those guys who started out with nothing but had an instinct for the market. He bought stocks of new companies he believed in for twenty-five thousand dollars when you were born, and what are they worth now, two million something?”