“Excuse me, B.J. I’ll be right back.”
Lucy spotted her mother and called out. Heads around the ballroom turned in the direction of the young voice and watched as the child hugged her mother. Grace felt her face reddening.
“Hello, Frank. Hello, Jan,” she said over Lucy’s head, suddenly conscious of her unmade-up face and the tired T-shirt she was wearing. Frank looked better than ever, lean and fit, his muscular forearms tanned beneath the sleeves of his golf shirt. Even though he repelled her at this point, Grace had to admit that Frank was a remarkable physical specimen. Though Lucy hadn’t inherited his piercing blue eyes, Grace was glad her daughter had her father’s straight nose and dazzling smile.
“How’s my Lucy?” she whispered as she hugged her daughter’s thin shoulders again.
Frank’s wife looked like she had just stepped out of a Talbots window, in her perfectly pressed khakis and kelly green cotton sweater tied just so over her shoulders. Jan’s smooth, bleached-blond hair was tied back with a black grosgrain ribbon, chosen to coordinate with the black band of her Movado watch and her soft Italian-leather sandals. Grace spotted the French pedicure on the new wife’s toes. It matched the manicured fingers that sported that honey of a diamond solitaire. Very prosperous, very put together, very pampered, very different from Grace.
“We checked in a little while ago and wanted to see if we could take you out to dinner,” Frank said. Lucy beamed.
Good going, Frank, thought Grace. Make it look like you’re Mr. Nice Guy in front of Lucy. You’re aiming to rip my heart out, but you’ll play the gracious dinner host.
“Gee, thanks very much, but I don’t know when I’ll be finished here. I don’t want to hold you up.”
“We can wait.” Grace felt the smugness in Frank’s voice.
“Yeah, Mom. We can wait.”
She was damned if she did, damned if she didn’t. Though Grace wanted to spend time with Lucy and hated to disappoint her daughter, the last thing she wanted was to spend the evening in a restaurant sitting across the table from Frank and his wife making polite small talk. She wanted to strangle Frank, not break bread with him. Yet if she used work as her excuse, it could just give Frank fuel for his argument that her career was going to make her inaccessible to Lucy.
“All right. I think I should be finished here around seven.”
“Great. The concierge told me there’s a good Italian restaurant not too far away from here. Let’s say seven-thirty at Sardella’s?”
“We’ll probably need a reservation,” Grace said, hoping that he wouldn’t be able to get one.
“I’ll talk to the concierge and make it happen.” Frank winked as he rubbed his thumb and forefinger together. Obnoxious to the last.
CHAPTER
43
B.J. was pleased as he fed the edited package on Madeleine Sloane’s death on the satellite to New York with a half hour to spare before the Evening Headlines began. He was thinking about how good he would look to the higher-ups when Sam approached him.
“I need to talk with you,” the intern said.
“All right. Give me two minutes. I’m almost done here.”
B.J. held on to the telephone line until he got an all clear from the record room at the Broadcast Center in New York. Disconnecting, he turned to Sam. “What’s up?”
“I think I have something that could help the show tomorrow morning.”
The producer looked at Sam inquisitively.
“I was out there on the Cliff Walk last night. I saw what happened to Madeleine Sloane.”
“Jesus, man.” B.J. took hold of Sam’s arm. “What did you see?”
Sam looked uncomfortable. “I don’t think I should say yet.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, I was thinking I could go on air tomorrow morning and tell what I saw then.”
The suggestion immediately raised B.J.’s suspicions. What was this kid pulling? Yet it would be a helluva coup to have an eyewitness as an exclusive interview on their first day in Newport.
“You know what, Sam? I think we need to talk to Nazareth about this.”
As they went to find KTA’s executive producer, the intern had to keep himself from smiling in satisfaction. This was exactly what he had wanted.
“Did you tell the police anything?” Linus asked.
“No.”
The executive producer was not perturbed. In fact, he was pleased.
“Well tell me, then. What did you see?”
“With all due respect, sir, I’d insist on saying it for the first time on the air tomorrow.”
Linus had to give this kid credit. He was manipulating the situation to his absolute best advantage. Just by this act of bravado and cunning, when the internship was completed, Sam had gotten Linus’s vote for the a.p. job. And his vote was the only vote that mattered.
The executive producer wished that he knew in advance what the kid was going to say, but not knowing wasn’t a deal breaker. After all, how did one ever know for certain what a person was going to say on live TV? In more than three decades in the business, Linus could remember more than one occasion where he’d been surprised with what a subject had said on air. Pre-interviews, done in advance of the on-air segments, usually gave an idea of what was going to be discussed. But there was absolutely no guarantee that an interviewee wouldn’t just have off and talk about something entirely different. That was what made live TV exciting.
If Sam had seen what happened to Madeleine Sloane, Linus wanted him to talk about it exclusively on KTA. Sam wanted the assistant producer job. Linus couldn’t imagine that the kid would screw them on the broadcast.
His decision made, Linus picked up the phone and called New York.
“Change the promo after the Evening Headlines tonight, pronto,” he commanded. “It should read, ‘Live and exclusive on tomorrow morning’s KEY to America…. The eyewitness to the death of a
daughter of Newport society tells what he saw.’”
“What video should we cover with?” the promotion producer frantically yelled back from New York.
“Take some of the video from Constance’s package of the body bag being carried up the steps and we’ll feed you video of the eyewitness right away,” Linus barked as he turned to B.J. “Grab your camera, get a shot of Sam, and feed the video to New York. Now.”
CHAPTER
44
After watching the reports of Madeleine’s death on the local news, it was time to turn to KEY. Constance Young’s report covered the bases. It was tough watching video of Madeleine’s body bag. It was even worse watching scenes from all those years ago—seeing just a glimpse of a younger version of the face of Charlotte’s killer. The same face, not terribly changed by time, that stared back from the mirror each morning. The old file tape showed the country club, the men in their tuxedos and the women in their summer gowns. Flowing blue, red, white, yellow, and green designer frocks were worn by the society ladies, but Charlotte, in her strapless gold lamé, stood out. There were pictures of the police canvassing the wealthy neighborhoods surrounding Oliver’s home and Shepherd’s Point, and flyers with Charlotte’s smiling face being tacked to telephone poles and taped in store windows around Newport.
That had been a terrifying time, and the memory of the constant worry about being found out came flooding back. After the news piece ended, Charlotte’s and Madeleine’s killer stared at the television set, not really taking in any of the other featured reports.
Forensic science was better than it had ever been. If that old photograph was turned in, it wouldn’t be too hard to figure everything out.
Maybe it was time to move out of town, to hide away.
But where? There was too much history here, a life established. Starting over somewhere else couldn’t be the answer. Once things started to unravel, there would, realistically, be nowhere to hide. All that could be done was to wait. Try to act as if nothing was amiss, and hope that there would be no more success in trac
king the killer now than there had been fourteen years ago. Crimes still went unsolved all the time.
Feeling a little better, the killer reached for the remote control and was about to snap off the television when the deep voice boomed.
“Live and exclusive on tomorrow morning’s KEY to America. The eyewitness to the death of a daughter of Newport society tells what he saw.”
The body bag on the Cliff Walk. A young man’s face.
The drunken kid from the clambake had seen the whole thing?
CHAPTER
45
Grace shouldn’t have been surprised. A table was waiting for them at precisely 7:30 at Sardella’s. The party of four was escorted to a cozy room at the side of the restaurant. As they took their seats, Grace was already thinking about the drink she wanted to order.
“How do you like the hotel?” she asked, casting for small talk. “It’s nice, isn’t it?”
“You should see our rooms, Mom,” Lucy answered with enthusiasm. “We have a suite. And there’s a Jacuzzi in the bathroom.”
“Great, honey.” Grace forced a smile, cursing Jacuzzis. Her own room was okay, but the bathroom was minuscule and she could barely turn around in the tiny shower stall. Oh well, what did it matter? She was hardly in the room. In fact, she couldn’t have cared less about having a Jacuzzi for herself. It was the whole idea that everything Frank offered Lucy was so much more glamorous and lush than what Grace could that bothered her.
The waitress arrived and reeled off the specials for the evening.
“What will you have, Grace?” Frank asked as the waitress went to fetch their drink orders.
“The eggplant parm sounds good to me.”
“Lucy?”
“Penne with vodka sauce.”
Frank frowned.
“The alcohol burns off when it’s heated, Frank. It’s absolutely fine for Lucy to have vodka sauce.”
“Yeah, Dad. Mom makes it at home for Grandpa and me sometimes.”
Watching the pinched expression on Frank’s face, Grace briefly wondered if this, too, was going to be used against her. Then she dismissed the thought as ludicrous. She couldn’t let herself become paranoid about how Frank would interpret every little thing.
Grace turned to Jan. “What are you going to have?”
The blonde smiled sweetly. “I’m going to let Frank order for me.”
So that was how it was between them, thought Grace. Better Jan than her.
CHAPTER
46
Eight-foot-high wrought-iron panels mounted between dressed limestone piers set atop a four-foot limestone wall made The Breakers a veritable fortress. The satellite truck pulled through the massive, ornate black iron gates. Scott Huffman didn’t have to be concerned with the top of the truck clearing the entry façade. Thirty feet high, the gate was topped by elaborate scrollwork incorporating the Vanderbilt symbols of acorns and oak leaves.
The gatekeeper’s cottage, immediately to the left once inside the gates, had been left open by agreement with the Preservation Society, to provide a place for the driver to relieve himself, if need be, overnight. With its ultra-expensive equipment, the satellite truck could not be left unguarded until the early-morning hours when the KEY to America staff would arrive to broadcast from The Breakers.
It was going to be a long night. Scott had prepared himself, filling a cooler with sandwiches and cans of soda and smuggling out a pillow and blanket from the hotel. He went down his checklist, making sure he had everything he needed inside the truck so that there would be no problems in the morning.
“Damn it,” Scott cursed as he realized some cable was missing.
CHAPTER
47
Sam wasn’t having any second thoughts. In fact, he was positive he was doing the right thing, the smart thing. He was excited about the coup he was scoring for KEY to America and for himself. Linus Nazareth had stopped by the newsroom on his way out to dinner to pat him on the shoulder. The guy loved him, thought Sam with satisfaction. The assistant producer job at the end of the internship would surely be his.
Sam knew he should get to bed. He wanted to be fresh for his first appearance on national television. He was just about to call it a night when one of the phones rang.
“It’s Scott Huffman over at The Breakers. I think we’re going to need some more yellow-jacketed cable. Can someone bring some over?”
“Where can I find it?” asked Sam, thinking that it never hurt to score more brownie points.
“In one of the crates against the wall at the back of the ballroom.”
“All right. I’ll bring it over right away.”
Sam hung up the phone, found the cable, and inquired at the assignment desk about borrowing a car to drive to The Breakers.
CHAPTER
48
The wooden chair rocked silently in the shadows on the hotel porch; time was growing short. But young people liked to go out and party when they were in a town like Newport, and it made sense to wait here and see if the bigmouthed kid came out.
And if he did come out? What then? How would he be eliminated?
There was no time to plan, just as there had been no time with Madeleine last night or with Charlotte all those years ago. It had to be done on instinct with something at hand.
CHAPTER
49
Grace had no desire to linger over coffee. Dinner had already been interminable.
“We were thinking of heading down to Bowen’s Wharf for a while, do a little browsing in the shops, look at the boats,” Frank said, setting his espresso cup back in its saucer.
“That sounds like fun,” Grace answered politely.
“Want to come with us, Mom?”
Grace smiled at her daughter and reached out to stroke the top of her head. “Thanks, Luce, but I have to get back. I have to be up early in the morning,” Grace said, thanking God she had an excuse to get away from Frank and his wife. She had watched Frank intermittently put his arm around Jan and hold her hand all through the meal. Enough was enough. Grace couldn’t help wondering whether Frank was always like this with Jan or whether he being so loving just to show Grace how “supremely happy” they were. Perfect parents to raise Lucy.
It was only a few blocks back to the hotel, and Grace welcomed the chance to walk in the night air and clear her head. She had to get her mind off the upcoming custody battle. There was little or nothing she could do about it while she was in Newport. When she got back home, she would make an appointment with her lawyer. This week she had to concentrate on the only thing she could control right now—her performance with KTA, with the goal of winning the staff job.
Everything was relative, though, wasn’t it? Sure, Grace was sick at the thought of losing Lucy, and of course, she wanted the job; but in light of what had happened to Madeleine, Grace felt guilty about obsessing over her own concerns. Her problems seemed minor in comparison.
Two days ago, Grace had never even heard of Madeleine Sloane. Yet Madeleine’s death, coming on the heels of their talk in the Vickerses’ living room, had left Grace shaken. Madeleine had been trying to make sense of her dreams, had been searching her memory for something that would reveal her mother’s killer. Had Madeleine figured something out in the time between their conversation and the time she died? Had that led to her death?
As she reached the hotel porch, Grace was contemplating going to the police with the details of her conversation with Madeleine. But bumping into Sam on his way out the front entrance distracted her for the moment.
“Where are you off to?” she asked, squinting in the light that streamed from the hotel.
“I have to bring this cable over to the satellite truck at The Breakers,” Sam said, holding up the coil of yellow electrical cord.
CHAPTER
50
Waiting had paid off.
There he was, talking to that Grace Callahan. As she left to go inside the hotel, Sam gave a ticket to the parking valet.
Up from
the rocking chair, passing right behind the kid as he waited unknowingly on the porch, going straight to the vehicle that had been parked across the street. Gripping the steering wheel, watching through the driver’s-side window as he got into the car that was brought around for him. He pulled out onto Bellevue Avenue heading in the direction of the mansions. A quick U-turn enabled the tail.
Where was this blabbermouth kid going?
Past Redwood Library and the Tennis Hall of Fame, past the shopping center, past The Elms. No matter where he was going, it could be dealt with. Every place was familiar. As long as he could be gotten alone.
His car slowed down as if he was searching the street signs. He made the left on Narragansett, then a right on Ochre Point, pulling into the parking lot across the street from The Breakers.
The vehicle that followed kept right on driving, passing the lot and making a turn onto the next side street. The headlights were switched off as it slid to the curb.
There was a tire iron in the trunk.
Sam held out the cable to the truck driver. “Is this what you wanted?”
“Yeah. That’s it. Thanks, kid.”
Sam turned to leave.
“I should have asked you, but I didn’t think of it,” said Scott. “I’ve got a whopper of a headache. You don’t happen to have any aspirin on you, do you, kid?”
“Nope. Sorry.” Sam shook his head. “But you want me to go out and get you some?”
The driver thought of the long night looming ahead. It would be nice to have a little break. The kid looked like he could be trusted. It wasn’t like there was anything important to do. It was only babysitting the truck.
“Actually, I have a few other things I could pick up. How would you feel about waiting here and keeping an eye on things for me?”
“I guess that would be okay,” said Sam with hesitation, wanting to go back to the hotel and get to bed. “You won’t be too long, will you? I have to take a leak.”
Hide Yourself Away Page 11
