She began to feel the loneliness that had been part of her adult life. She was off by herself amid events rushing by that she couldn’t control. She needed help, and there was no one she could turn to. The prospect of escaping with Padraig to a desolate island suddenly became attractive.
Padraig came east two days before their trip to make the arrangements. He stopped by her loft, bringing a fantastic bouquet of flowers. “I won’t be here to enjoy them,” she protested, but he argued that a few hours of enjoyment was all that was to be expected from cut flowers. He gave her a list of personal items that she might need, including seasickness pills and insect repellent. “Just precautions. I’ve arranged flat seas and ordered the entire island dusted with Agent Orange. All the bugs will be suicidal.”
Finally, he produced an elaborately wrapped gift that he urged her to open. She eyed it suspiciously, guessing that it might be a provocative nightgown or some other toy suggestive of his true intentions. “You said there are two cabins on this boat,” she reminded him.
“And you can have both of them,” he answered. Then he gestured impatiently toward the package. “Open it. It won’t explode.”
She did, with exaggerated care, and took out a set of inflatable water wings. “In case you decide to leave early,” he explained.
Jennifer laughed hysterically while Padraig struggled with the air valve and exhausted himself blowing up the toy. Then she told him, “You know, the only time I laugh anymore is when I’m with you.” She leaned in to him and kissed his cheek. She didn’t pull away when he turned his face so that their lips were touching.
He was the one who pulled back abruptly. “Now, now, we mustn’t let ourselves be distracted. There’s work to do.” He handed her the water wings. “Wear these when you get into Camden. That way I’ll be sure to recognize you.” And then he was gone, leaving Jennifer staring at the door he had closed behind him and thinking that maybe she should pack a sexy nightgown just in case.
PART FOUR
TWENTY
It was obvious that she had to die. And it really had nothing to do with hatred. You could look at it as self-defense. Without a doubt, she was the one who had planned the break-in at my apartment. If it weren’t for the security system, I probably would have been killed right where I was standing.
Or maybe it was the only ending left to either of us. She had taken Padraig away from me, or at least that’s what she was trying to do. And that was the pattern of our entire lives. Whatever one had, the other wanted. She had copied my drawings, taken my toys, and stolen the recognition that I earned. She had moved in on my boyfriends and horned in on my business achievements. I really had no hope of having a life of my own as long as my sister was looking over my shoulder and breathing down my neck. There was little doubt that one of us would have to go.
I think that’s why she tried to have me killed. Like me, she understood that there wasn’t room for both of us. It was as simple as that. It had nothing to do with a psychopathic personality. It was simply a solution to a lifelong problem that wasn’t going to go away.
That’s why this boat trip Padraig came up with was so appealing. It provided the perfect opportunity as well as the perfect alibi. Think about it. We were going to be hundreds of miles apart and completely out of touch with each other. One of us on a rock that was precisely in the middle of nowhere. The other in Manhattan. How could anything that happened to one of us possibly be blamed on the other? Oh, I’d know what happened. And, of course, my dear sister would find out in the end.
Of course I knew it was wrong. One person is not supposed to wish evil on another, much less pull the trigger. So we can forget all that nonsense about insanity and my not knowing the difference between right and wrong. I knew. I knew it was a crime and that if I got caught, I could spend the rest of my life in prison.
But what you have to understand is that there was no other way. I simply had no choice. Ever since we were children, she has been edging her way into my life. Now she was trying to take it over completely.
Inheritance was my picture. I put up the money to keep it alive. Padraig had told me several times that he was going to dedicate the film to me. But my sister walked into the screening as if she owned the place. You can’t imagine how it feels to see yourself being elbowed out of your own achievements.
You can just imagine the premiere, can’t you? Padraig steps out of the car and then reaches back in to help his lady out. And out comes my sister, smiling and waving at the television cameras. And what would I do? Come in the second limo and sneak in behind the crowd as if I’m just a friend of the family?
Padraig was mine, as any sensible person would have known. But with her around, I never could be sure. He told me he loved me, and I suppose I knew it was true. But at the same time, he was still seeing a lot of my sister. So how could I be sure he wasn’t saying the same things to her? Maybe he was telling her that he needed to keep me around for business reasons, just until the movie began returning money. Maybe he had promised her that he’d drop me as soon as he could so that they could be together forever. I assumed that he was stringing her along. But it could have been the other way around. After all, he was an actor. He won the Academy Award.
And Pegasus was mine. Everyone knew that I was the brains behind the business. Peter certainly knew it. But she turned him against me, until Peter was using all his muscle to keep Padraig and me apart. What did Peter care? There was plenty of money for him whether Padraig left or stayed. In fact, he probably would have made more once Leprechaun blossomed. But he fought it to the end just to drive Padraig out of my life. Who do you suppose put him up to that?
In the final analysis, it was my sister or me. Together we would have self-destructed. And she knew that as well as I did. She tried to have me killed, didn’t she? So I struck first, in order to reclaim the life she had stolen and save the life she was determined to destroy.
Call it a crime, if you must. But it’s not insane hatred, and it’s not the mind of a brooding psychopath. It’s simply a case of doing what has to be done and letting the chips fall where they may.
TWENTY-ONE
PADRAIG HADN’T expected the crowd. He knew that Camden, with its picturesque harbor, weathered white houses, picket fences, and boutique stores was a summer tourist mecca. But he hadn’t figured on the foliage. Fall, on any civilized calendar, was still a month away. But in Maine the leaves begin to turn in late summer, weeks before the procession of color would work its way down the Appalachians during October and November. The foliage followers had already arrived, and the streets were packed.
He was pleased, for a change, to go unnoticed behind a disguise of sunglasses and a soft, floppy hat. The bland rental car wouldn’t attract any attention. Of course, he’d be recognized as soon as he stepped into the yacht agency to claim his trawler and the hired captain. And, as always, the word would spread until half the town and most of the tourists were pressed to the glass outside the office. But they had no advance warning. None of the arrangements had been made using his name. In his telephone conversations with the broker, he had been careful not to use his signature brogue. Just another businessman planning to get away for a few days.
He turned off the main street to the drive that headed to the piers, and crept along behind tourists until he reached the broker’s sign. Then he stepped out of the car, pulled the brim of the hat down over his face, and sauntered along the pier. He could see the boat, a white-hulled trawler with sparkling brightwork around the doors and windows. The name, Maineman, was painted across the transom, with Camden listed as the port of registry. He paused momentarily to take her in and wonder what impression she would make on Jennifer, who, he remembered, had done some yachting with Peter Barnes. He guessed she would appreciate the boat’s businesslike lines. He noticed the inflatable dinghy sitting on the rails atop the afterquarters, its small outboard already mounted. And the boom out from the mast that would lift the dinghy into the water. That would give them e
asy passage from the boat to the beach. He stepped inside and went to the secretary’s desk, still wearing his hat and sunglasses.
“Mr. Pegan,” he said softly. “I believe I have a charter waiting.”
The woman never looked up but simply flipped through the pile of charter contracts on her desk. “Mr. Cashen would be handling that,” she said, settling on one of the documents.
“Yes, that’s his name. Cashen,” he agreed happily.
She rose. “Come with me,” she said, and led him down a hallway to the back of the building. There was one office, not overly large and housing only one desk. The sign on the door said HOWARD V. CASHEN, which struck Padraig as unnecessary, since there was no one else to confuse him with. The man in the office got up and offered his hand. Padraig took off the hat and folded the sunglasses into his pocket. The broker’s eyes and the secretary’s eyes widened at the same instant. His expression turned from business to pleasure. Her mouth dropped open and stayed that way until she covered it with the back of her hand.
“That explains,” Cashen said after dismissing the dumbstruck secretary and gesturing Padraig into a chair, “why all the correspondence came from a third party.”
“Is that a problem?” Padraig asked.
“Not now. Not since I understand your reason for confidentiality.” Cashen was amused. “I suppose you have to go through this sort of thing all the time.”
He pulled his records and consulted them as he explained how the boat had been provisioned. Diesel fuel and freshwater tanks had been filled. The holding tank had been drained and freshened, the bilge pump checked, all plumbing lines tested, all toilets, showers, and faucets exercised. The engine had been checked out, electronics and navigation systems verified. “She’s in tip-top condition. Thoroughly seaworthy,” Cashen concluded. Padraig marveled at the sizable dollar figure that was at the bottom of his page.
Then he got into the galley provisioning. There were fresh eggs, bacon, and sausages for the breakfasts, as well as cold cereals and bake-and-serve muffins. A variety of microwave meals for the lunches, along with several servings of cold finger foods. And for the dinners, there were steaks, chops, and fresh fish that could be done on a grill hung out from the stern cockpit, and half a dozen kinds of fruits and vegetables. For all this, together with the hefty stores of champagne, gin, single malt, and beer that had been locked in the liquor cabinet, and the variety of wines in the wine rack, there was another surprising sum of money due.
And, of course, there was a fee for the captain who would take Padraig and the yacht on the thirty-mile trip from Camden to Blue Hill, where Jennifer was scheduled to come aboard. She planned to be chartered up on Friday morning to a small airport on the water where Padraig would pick her up. With the complicated rock formations and the challenging navigation behind them, the captain would then depart, leaving it to his passengers to make the short trip out into Blue Hill Bay and anchor off Pennobquit Island. For three hours at sea and one simple docking, the captain was making more than one of Padraig’s stuntmen.
“So,” Cashen totaled on a small pocket calculator, “it comes to an additional three thousand, two hundred dollars. And your check allowed for three thousand in provisioning.”
Padraig reached into his pocket and peeled off two hundred in cash. The broker swept it up, then passed Padraig an empty logbook. “I wonder if I might have your autograph?”
The captain turned out to be anything but a yacht officer. Padraig was expecting a Nordic figure, painfully shaved, in officer’s cap and uniform jacket. Instead, he got a short, bushy type with three days’ growth of beard, who wore jeans and a checkered sports shirt. He came without a title and identified himself only as Mike. He took a quick tour of the trawler, sneered at the small, ornate wheel and the computerlike navigation display, and started the engine. Padraig dragged his own duffel aboard, the broker threw off the lines, and the Maineman backed out of its slip.
It got cold the instant they cleared the breakwater. Along with the early foliage season came early frost, and an onshore breeze chilled by passage over the Labrador Current. They could expect the days to be pleasant and the nights to be raw. “Hope ya hahve somethin’ a bit heavier than that,” Mike said, nodding at Padraig’s golf shirt.
Padraig was immediately thankful that he had requested a captain. The chart was a confusing pattern of deep blues and glaring yellows indicating safe passages and dangerous shoals. The passages were pockmarked with small islands, which he could see were really rocky spikes, and with X’s indicating rocks that lurked just below a low tide. Most of the thirty-mile passage was filled with hazards that could tear the bottom out of a ship. Yet Mike had both engines pushed to cruise, scarcely referred to the chart, and hadn’t bothered to turn on the navigation electronics. “Plenty of water,” he said when Padraig commented on the proximity of stone walls rising up out of the sea. Then he tore the filter off a cigarette and struck a wooden match with his thumbnail.
The view was truly beautiful. The water was black and clear, nearly the color of the rocks it washed against. The trawler plowed through with pulsating crashes, throwing out a salty white spray. Huge clouds climbed in towers high into the sky. And on the shoreline, the bright green grass was topped by reds, oranges, and yellows in the trees.
“When is the young lady joining you?” Mike asked to show Padraig that he knew exactly what he was up to.
“Tomorrow morning. She’s flying up from New York.”
“That’s nice!” Mike observed. Then he added, “You actah fellas certainly lead excitin’ lives.”
“You don’t know the half of it,” Padraig answered.
They cruised to the east above North Haven Island, then turned to the south to move around Deer Isle. The weather picked up a bit and the spray began hitting the windows as they moved out toward open water. “Blowing a bit,” Padraig said, trying to sound like a seafarer.
“Nothin’ like wintah,” Mike answered. “Then it’s the waves that are bangin’ on the windahs.”
Padraig was happy that he hadn’t waited another week.
Peter made one last try to keep Jennifer from going. He walked into her office unannounced and stretched into the chair across from her desk. He beat around the bush with a few questions about the state of the network and took her through some traffic figures that she had already seen. Only when she shuffled impatiently did he get to his message.
“I’m really uncomfortable with this trip you’re taking, and I wish you’d reconsider.” He saw she was about to interrupt him, so he rushed his words. “There are hundreds of places that you and Padraig can meet to talk things out. It doesn’t have to be on a deserted island out of communication with the rest of the world. Have dinner in a private dining room. Or take a buggy ride through Central Park. Someplace where you’re not alone.”
“The whole idea is to be alone. To get away from everything—and everyone—else.”
He felt chastised. He was most likely the “everyone” she was talking about. Catherine had given up after her initial protests. “I don’t care what she does,” she had finally conceded.
But Peter did care. He had still not shaken the idea that it was O’Connell who had arranged Jennifer’s accident. And he had no doubts about the motive. Peter had documented to the penny exactly how much the man had taken from the two sisters. There was hardly a scenario where Inheritance could return even seventy-five cents on the dollar. Their chances of being repaid were nonexistent.
“Suppose you have another accident,” he tried hesitantly. He knew he was touching a subject that would drive Jennifer into rage. “Who’s going to know about it? And when someone learns about it, how are they going to get to you? You were in a hospital last time in less than an hour. There is no hospital where he’s taking you. There may not even be a place to land a helicopter.”
“What kind of accident do you have in mind?” she responded sarcastically. “We won’t have a car, if that’s what you’re worried about.”<
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He snapped back, “You’re at sea without a captain, for God’s sake. Anything could happen.”
“We’ll be anchored about a hundred feet from shore. It’s probably a lot safer than taking a carriage ride through Central Park. Catherine will be in more danger if she steps out on her balcony.”
“Unexpected things happen very quickly on boats!” he reminded her. And then he killed his argument by adding, “Particularly when the other guy in the boat is distracted.”
She rolled her eyes. “Please, Peter, I have a lot of things to finish up before I leave.”
He looked at her. “Please, I’m begging you. Don’t go!”
Jennifer was taken back. Peter, begging? That wasn’t the man she had known for the past ten years. He would disagree. He would argue. But he would never put his feelings into his case. He stood or fell with the facts. He never whined or complained. He never begged.
“Why are you doing this?” Jennifer asked. “You know I have to see this through.”
“Why do you have to see it through? You already know how badly it can end. You don’t have to give him another chance to … to hurt you.”
“I have to give myself another chance,” she answered. “Padraig can have a hundred more lives, with me or without me. But he’s the only life I have. He’s the only one who cares about me.”
“I care about you. I always have, and I always will.”
She heard him clearly, but she wasn’t prepared for his meaning. Of course he cared about her. He had promised her father that he would, just as he had promised to take care of Catherine. But he didn’t understand. It wasn’t her physical health at issue, or even the fortune that he had helped to build. What needed caring for now was simply her. Her self-image, her temperament, her vision of a future. Her need to love someone more than herself, and to be loved by someone in return. Her freedom and her individuality. All the things that could never take root as the poor little rich girl living in the shadow of a famous sister.
Good Sister, The Page 25
