“I’ve heard a rumor. I’m not going to say where I heard it. From what I understand, you and Charles had been driving to Jonathan’s dinners together for the last year and a half since Lillian was banned from his house.”
“Yes, that’s true. Before that, Charles would go alone with Lillian and I would drive my own car.”
“Albert, the rumor I heard is that Charles has been shopping the parchment. Do you think that there is any chance that could be happening?”
She and Willy could both see in Albert’s expression his reluctance to answer.
Finally he said, “I not only think it’s happening, but I actually spoke about it to the detectives in New Jersey yesterday. I have always considered Charles to be a good friend, so it was very painful for me to talk about him in this vein.”
Alvirah sat back as the waitress placed the tall glasses of latte in front of them on the table. “Albert, what did you tell the detectives?”
“Exactly what I’m going to tell you now. Desmond Rogers, a wealthy collector beyond reproach, whom Charles defrauded a number of years ago, was the source of my information. He didn’t volunteer how he knew and I didn’t ask.”
Albert took a sip of his latte and, knowing that he was about to be cross-examined by Alvirah, repeated to her and Willy what he had told the detectives about the previous fraud involving Charles and Desmond.
“Albert, this is very important. Will you try to get Desmond on the phone right now and ask him where he got that information?”
Albert frowned. “Quite frankly, Desmond Rogers pays confidential sources in the antiquities world to keep him informed of what’s coming on the market. I am sure that he would never buy anything without impeccable provenance—which is why he would never have bid for the parchment.”
Alvirah replied, “Albert, I’m not suggesting that Rogers has done anything wrong. But you’ve told us that he lost a lot of money because of Charles. Maybe he was only too happy to pass on this kind of information. But if he or one of his sources truly does have solid proof about this, you have to know it’s probably tied in with Jonathan’s death. It’s important that he fully understand that Jonathan’s murder and the disappearance of two women who were close to him all may be connected to that parchment.”
Albert shook his head. “And you don’t think that all this hasn’t occurred to me?” he asked wearily as he pulled out his cell phone. “I absolutely trust Desmond’s integrity. He would never touch that parchment or any other stolen property, but I assure you he’ll never betray his sources. If he did, the word would get around and he’d never be able to use them again. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll step outside and make the call. I’ll be right back.”
He was gone a full ten minutes. When he returned, his face was flushed and angry. “I never thought that Desmond Rogers would pull this on me. I’ve been sick ever since I told the cops what he told me about Charles. Now I find out that Desmond didn’t hear this from a reliable source. When I asked him about it, at first he hedged around and then finally admitted that he had received an anonymous call. He couldn’t even tell if it was a man or woman. The voice was husky and low. The caller said that Charles was accepting bids on the parchment and that if Desmond was interested he should give him a call.”
“I thought that might be the case,” Alvirah said with satisfaction in her voice. “What did Desmond say to that person?”
“I can’t repeat to a lady what he claims he said. And then he hung up.”
Studying Albert intently, Alvirah watched as the veins in his forehead began to bulge.
“I’m going to call those detectives first thing in the morning,” he said angrily, slapping his hand on the table. “They should know this. And I have to decide whether to admit to Charles what I said about him.”
They finished their lattes and left the diner. On the way home, Alvirah was unusually quiet. Willy knew that the wheels in her head were turning. “What did you get out of all that, honey?”
“Willy, this doesn’t mean that Charles is innocent. And this doesn’t mean that Albert was telling the truth. With all of his so-called reluctance, my gut tells me he had no problem telling the prosecutor’s office about that quote-unquote rumor. Don’t forget, he’s on their radar screen too.”
“So do you think our meeting with him was a waste of time?” Willy asked.
“Not at all, Willy,” Alvirah said as he took her arm to cross the street. “Not at all.”
68
Wally Gruber and Joshua Schultz sat across from each other, separated by an old wooden table, in the attorney-client conference room. “You look nervous, Josh,” Wally said. “I’m the one in Rikers Island, not you.”
“You’re the one who should be nervous,” Schultz snapped. “There isn’t one guy locked up in this rat hole who doesn’t hate a snitch. Billy Declar is already passing the word that you gave him up. You did it for a reason, but you’d better watch your back.”
“Let me worry about that,” Wally said dismissively. “You know, Josh, I’m kind of looking forward to driving out to New Jersey tomorrow. It’s supposed to be a nice day and I could use a breath of fresh air.”
“You’re not driving out, Wally. You’re being hauled out there in handcuffs and chains. It’s not an outing. No matter what you come up with, you’re still going to do some hard time. Okay, you were on the level about the jewelry. But if you’re lying about the face you claim you saw and nothing ends up coming out of the sketch, who knows? They might ask you at that point to take a lie-detector test to check out your story. If you refuse, or you take it and fail, they’ll think you’ve played around with them on a homicide case. If that happens you’ll be lucky if getting back that jewelry takes six months off your sentence.”
“You know, Josh,” Wally said with a sigh as he signaled to the guard standing outside the door that he was ready to go back to his cell, “you’re a born pessimist. I saw a face that night. I can see that face as clear as I’m seeing yours. And by the way, the person was better looking than you. Anyhow, if nobody they show the sketch to recognizes it, then the shooter was probably hired to get rid of Lyons, right?”
The guard had entered and Wally stood up. “Josh, I got one more thing to tell you. I got no problem at all if they want me to take a lie-detector test. My blood pressure won’t rise and my heart won’t skip a beat. That graph with all those lines running through it will be as smooth as a baby’s bottom.”
Joshua Schultz looked at his client with grudging admiration. Completely undecided in his own mind as to whether Gruber was pulling a fast one, he said, “I’ll see you in the prosecutor’s office tomorrow morning, Wally.”
“I can’t wait, Josh. I miss you already. But don’t go in there with a long face and act like you don’t believe what I’m saying. If you do, the next time I get in trouble, I’ll find a new lawyer.”
He means it, Schultz thought as he watched the retreating figure of his client being escorted back to his cell. He shrugged. I guess I should look on the bright side, he decided.
Unlike a lot of my other clients, Wally always pays my bill.
69
At six P.M. Thursday, Mariah stepped off the elevator on the psychiatric floor of Bergen Park Medical Center. A guard was sitting at a desk at the end of the corridor. She walked over to him, aware that her heels were making a clicking sound on the polished floor.
He looked up, his expression neither pleasant nor hostile. She gave her name, as she had to the receptionist in the lobby, and showed him the pass that she had been given. Then, with rising concern, she watched as he made a phone call. Don’t let them tell me at the last minute that for some reason I can’t see Mom, she thought nervously. Don’t let that happen.
The guard put down the phone. “A nurse will be right out to escort you to your mother’s room,” he said, his voice hinting at a degree of compassion.
Do I look as upset as I feel? Mariah asked herself. After Lloyd’s call earlier confirming that she cou
ld visit, she had realized that there was enough time to shower and change her clothes. After lugging the dresser drawers and the contents of her closet from one room to the other, she had felt hot and rumpled.
Now she was dressed in a red linen jacket and white slacks. She had twisted her long hair up and fastened it with a clip. Remembering how her mother had never left the house in the old days without putting on makeup, she’d gone to the dressing table and reached for the mascara and eye shadow. Maybe it will please Mom if she realizes I spruced up for her, she had thought. It’s the sort of thing that she just might notice. She had debated for a minute, then opened the small wall safe in the walk-in closet and took out the strand of pearls her father had given her for her birthday two years ago.
“Your mother believes that old superstition that pearls are tears,” he had said, smiling. “My mother always loved them.”
Thank you, Dad, Mariah thought as she clasped them around her neck.
She was glad she had taken the time to change, because Greg had called while she was driving to the hospital. He’d insisted that he would meet her back at the house around eight thirty. “I’m taking you to dinner,” he said protectively. “I know the way you’ve been eating, or, more accurately, not eating. I’m not going to let you get to the point where you don’t even cast a shadow.”
“I hope I’ll be getting my appetite back by tomorrow night,” she had told him as she pulled into the hospital parking lot. “I have a feeling that by then Charles Michaelson will be under arrest.”
Then, before he could speak, she’d added, “Greg, I can’t talk now. I’m at the hospital. I’ll see you later.”
As she waited at the security desk, she remembered that Lloyd Scott had warned her not to talk about the potential witness to anyone. Well, I didn’t say much, she thought as the door behind the guard’s desk opened. A petite Asian woman in a white jacket and slacks, with an identification tag on a cord around her neck, smiled and said, “Ms. Lyons, I’m Nurse Emily Lee. I’ll take you to your mother.”
Swallowing over a lump in her throat and a sudden stinging in her eyes, Mariah followed her past a row of closed doors. At the last one, the nurse tapped on it lightly, then opened it.
As she followed her into the room, Mariah was not sure what she expected to see, but it was certainly not the small figure in a hospital gown and robe sitting at the window in semidarkness.
“She doesn’t want the light any brighter,” the nurse whispered. Then in a cheery tone, she said, “Kathleen, Mariah is here to see you.”
There was no response.
“Is she heavily medicated?” Mariah asked angrily.
“She has been given some very light sedation, which helps to calm her when she’s been angry or frightened.”
As Mariah walked toward her, Kathleen Lyons slowly turned her head. The nurse turned up the lights, making Mariah clearly visible, but there was no sign of recognition in her expression.
Mariah knelt down and took her mother’s hands in hers. “Mom, Kathleen, it’s me.”
She watched as her mother’s face became puzzled.
“You’re so pretty,” Kathleen said. “I used to be pretty too.” Then she closed her eyes and leaned back. She did not open them, nor did she speak again.
Mariah sat on the floor, her arms around her mother’s legs, slow tears streaming from her eyes, until ten minutes of eight, when a voice on the intercom requested that visitors leave by eight o’clock.
Then she got up, kissed her mother gently on her cheek, and embraced her. She smoothed back the gray hair that had once been a stunning shade of golden blond. “I’ll be back tomorrow,” she whispered. “And maybe by then we’ll be able to clear your name. There isn’t much else I can do for you except that.”
At the nurses’ station, she stopped to speak to Emily Lee. “The report to the judge said that my mother was angry and aggressive,” she said accusingly. “I certainly don’t see any evidence of that kind of behavior.”
“It will happen again,” Lee said quietly. “Anything may set her off. But there have been several times when she thought she was at home with you and your father. She was so animated and happy then. Until this disease set in, I imagine her life was pretty wonderful. Trust me, that’s a lot to be grateful for.”
“I guess so. Thank you.” With an attempt at a smile, Mariah turned and left the secured patient area, passed by the guard, and waited at the bank of elevators. A few minutes later, she was in her car on the way home. She was sure Greg would already be there waiting for her.
She also knew that no matter what happened when Wally Gruber sat down to do that sketch, she had to make some painful decisions about the future.
70
From his interrogation at the prosecutor’s office on Thursday morning, Richard had gone directly home to his apartment in the Bronx and tried to concentrate on finalizing the lesson plans that he had been preparing for his fall semester classes.
It was a wasted afternoon. He had accomplished nothing. Finally, at four thirty, he’d telephoned Alvirah. The reception he received from her was uncharacteristically cool. “Hello, Richard. What can I do for you?”
“Look, Alvirah,” he said heatedly, “I’ve been dragged over the coals at the prosecutor’s office today because I gather you were able to overhear the message Lillian left on my cell phone the other night. I’ll tell you what I told those detectives. You can believe me or not believe me, but at least let me know how Mariah and Kathleen are doing. Mariah won’t talk to me and I’m worried sick about her.”
His voice passionate, he repeated every word of what he had told the prosecutors.
Alvirah’s tone softened a little. “Richard, you sound on the level, but I have to tell you that in my mind you’re not coming clean about your motive for trying to make a deal with Lillian for the parchment. On the other hand I’m beginning to form my own suspicions about someone else, but I’m not ready to discuss them yet because I may be wrong. From what Mariah tells me, there’s a good chance that tomorrow this will all be over. I’m not saying anything else now.”
“I certainly hope you’re right,” Richard said fervently. “Have you seen Mariah? Have you spoken to her? How is she?”
“I spoke to her a couple of times today. She’s just gotten the judge’s permission to visit her mother tonight.” Alvirah hesitated. “Richard…” Her voice trailed off.
“What is it, Alvirah?”
“Never mind. My question can wait for another day. Good-bye.”
What was that all about? Richard asked himself as he pushed the chair back from his desk and stood up. I’ll go out for a walk on the campus, he decided. Maybe I can clear my head.
But even a long walk on the shaded paths between the beautiful Gothic buildings on Rose Hill did not have its usual effect of helping him to think calmly. At three minutes of six, he was back in his apartment, a paper bag from the nearby deli under his arm. He turned on the television as he unwrapped the sandwich that was going to be his dinner.
The opening words of the CBS six o’clock evening news startled him: “Potential bombshell in the Jonathan Lyons murder case. An eyewitness may have seen the face of the killer. Now these messages.”
Sitting bolt upright, Richard waited with frantic impatience for the commercials to be over.
The two anchors, Chris Wragge and Dana Tyler, came back on screen. “A spokesperson for the Bergen County prosecutor’s office has confirmed that jewelry stolen during the burglary of the home of the next-door neighbor of murdered professor Jonathan Lyons has been recovered,” Wragge began. “They will neither confirm nor deny that Wally Gruber, a convicted felon who was arrested for the burglary, claims that while he was inside the neighbor’s home next door, he witnessed someone fleeing from the Lyons residence immediately after Professor Lyons was shot. He reportedly also says that he can clearly describe that person. Sources tell us that Gruber, who is now on Rikers Island after being arrested for an attempted burglary in New
York, is being transported to New Jersey tomorrow morning. He will be taken to the prosecutor’s office in Hackensack to describe to their composite technician the face he claims he saw that Monday night, nearly two weeks ago.”
“Imagine if he’s telling the truth and comes up with a sketch of a face that someone does recognize,” Dana Tyler said. “That could lead to the charges against Kathleen Lyons being dropped.”
As she spoke, they replayed the tape of Kathleen’s arraignment in the courtroom from the other day, with Kathleen standing before the judge in bright orange jail garb.
So that’s what Alvirah meant when she said that by this time tomorrow, all this may be over, Richard thought. Kathleen could be free. He began to switch from channel to channel. They were all carrying the same story.
At six thirty he grabbed his car keys and went rushing out of the apartment.
71
At six o’clock Alvirah and Willy were listening to the same CBS broadcast. Willy watched as Alvirah’s normally cheerful countenance took on a worried frown. After speaking to Mariah earlier, Alvirah had told him that the crook who stole that jewelry might have seen someone leaving Jonathan’s house after he was shot.
“Honey, I thought you told me this was a big secret,” Willy said. “How come it’s all over the news?”
“It’s hard to keep this kind of stuff quiet,” Alvirah said with a sigh. “There’s always somebody who tips off the press.” She pushed a stray lock of hair back behind her right ear. “Thank God Dale of London will be back next week,” she said. “Otherwise my roots will be so white I’ll have to wear a hood.”
“It’s hard to believe that Labor Day is this weekend already,” Willy commented as he gazed out over Central Park, its blanket of lush green leaves still thick on the trees. “Before you can blink an eye, winter will be here and they’ll all be gone.”
The Lost Years Page 22
