The Melody Lingers On

by Mary Higgins Clark

  The bedroom was exactly what he’d expected. It smelled of stale cigarette smoke. The bedspread was grimy and stained. He shuddered to think what had caused those stains. Disgusted, he reminded himself that he would not be here for too long.

  He took the threadbare towel from the bathroom, moistened it with tap water, and wiped down the surfaces of the dresser and nightstands. The towel came up black with grit. He had a flashback to the mansion in Greenwich, where in his bedroom the stately mahogany furniture was always glistening, kept immaculately clean by the weekly maid service and the housekeeper.

  It will be easy to keep out of sight in a place like this, Parker thought bitterly. Then he reminded himself that once he had gotten the number of that Swiss account and had access to the money, the rest of his life would be smooth sailing, literally!

  He threw the dirty towel in the wastebasket and sat down on what passed for the desk chair. He realized that getting up so early to finish his packing and the anxiety of being stopped at any time were contributing to his feelings of exhaustion. He ate dinner that night at a nearby diner, came back to the room at the motel, and slept for ten hours.

  The following morning, feeling refreshed, he looked up the number of a nearby passport office and cabbed there. His birth certificate in the name of Joseph Bennett was in his pocket. They’re looking for Parker Bennett, not Joseph Bennett. But the moment he spoke to a clerk at the office he realized there was no way he would get a passport. Even with his birth certificate, the clerk informed him he would need three other different forms of identification, including his driver’s license, if he had one, and social security card. He took the passport forms, ostensibly to finish the application at home. At the nearest litter basket, he angrily tore them up and threw them in it. At that moment he didn’t know what his next move would be.

  If Sylvie had turned him in, it would soon be over. Every cop at every airport would be on the lookout for George Hawkins. And then, suddenly, he began to laugh, an almost hysterical laugh. Sylvie had only seen the boat receipt. She didn’t know he had a British passport. The Feds would be looking for an American passport—an American passport registered in the name of George Hawkins.

  So now I have to hang out here for a while, he thought. I’ll buy a gray or white wig, or maybe both. He had always battled with his weight. He had struggled to keep himself at an even two hundred pounds by watching his diet and exercising regularly. Over these next few weeks he would indulge himself. He would welcome some of those pounds he had spent forty years fighting and pack them on while enjoying high-fat, delicious foods.

  Waffles and crisp bacon for breakfast, he thought. Thick cheeseburgers and French fries for lunch. Every fattening food I can think of, I will thoroughly enjoy.

  Pleased by the thought of the wonderful meals that awaited him, Parker tipped the cabby, who dropped him off in front of the motel.

  Home sweet home, he thought, smiling to himself. It shouldn’t take more than a few weeks to grow a beard, gain weight, and complete the makeover I need. It will all work out. It has to.

  There was one more item on his list. He needed a gun. Not that he intended to use it. He certainly did not plan to kill anyone, but when he did reach Anne’s town house, he had to be prepared. If she showed any sign of turning him in, he knew the sight of a gun would terrify her and guarantee her silence.

  Sylvie de la Marco—Sally Chico, he thought contemptuously. She had sucked him dry financially these last two years and she was going to get away with it.

  Of course, if he was caught, he’d have one consolation. She too would land in prison and he wouldn’t be paying millions of dollars to decorate her cell.

  57

  Eleanor Becker was not surprised to receive a call from Sean Cunningham. He asked her if he could take her and Frank out to lunch.

  “I suspect you are not getting out too often these days, Eleanor,” he said.

  “No, not much,” Eleanor had admitted.

  Even though it had been less than two weeks, the warmth she had felt at Thanksgiving dinner with her cousins was just that, a memory, and it seemed a distant one. Every morning she awakened with a sense of great weariness. Her dreams were troubled and even frightening. She was being shoved into a dark room, then she realized it was a prison cell. She could see only bars all around her. She began to pound on them. She started crying and shouting, “No, please, let me out of here, please let me out of here. I didn’t do it, I swear to you, I didn’t do it!!!”

  Those nightmares, combined with her ceaseless worry about Frank’s diabetes, made her feel as though she was completely hollow inside. When she did leave the house it was only on Sunday morning to go to Mass. As she sat in church she would glance surreptitiously from side to side to see if anyone was staring at her. Even in church, peace escaped her.

  Her response to Sean’s luncheon invitation was a simple, “I don’t think so.”

  “Well I do,” Sean said firmly. “Eleanor, you’ve got to get out. We’ll go to Xaviars. It looks out over the Hudson. The food is delicious. It will do you a world of good. I’ll pick you and Frank up at twelve thirty tomorrow.”

  When Eleanor hung up the phone, she turned to Frank. “It seems as if we’ve got a lunch date with Sean Cunningham,” she said nervously.

  “I like him,” Frank said decisively. “Maybe he’ll convince you to go back to the hypnotist. I certainly hope he can.”

  The next morning, Eleanor went to the beauty salon. Since all the trouble had started, she had been doing her hair at home except when it absolutely needed to be cut. After she shampooed, she would let it air-dry and then push the naturally wavy tresses around her face, framing her forehead. But it still never looked quite right.

  Now, sitting in the beautician’s chair, she felt more like herself. She felt more like the secretary who brought coffee and doughnuts for the victims who were unknowingly handing their life savings to Parker Bennett, she thought sadly.

  Sean had gotten a table by the window. As he had promised, they could gaze out over the Hudson, which looked cold with whitecaps, in stark contrast to the same river that filled in the summer with private boats.

  Sean greeted them and pointed to the river.

  A harbinger of things to come,” he said. “It’s predicted to be a cold, snowy winter and it looks as though it’s starting early.”

  Eleanor seldom had a drink at lunch but with Sean’s encouragement, she had a glass of wine and so did Frank. As they ordered, she began to feel her spirits lift just as she had at Thanksgiving. It was good to get out; Sean and Frank had been right.

  Over pasta Sean asked her, “Eleanor, I’m sure you remember Ranger Cole. You saw him at the funeral service.”

  “I remember him, poor man,” Eleanor answered. “He looked as though he was totally out of it. I felt sorry for him.”

  “I’m afraid he is still out of it,” Sean said. “He tried to put on a good front at the meeting last week but I could see through it.”

  Over coffee, Sean broached the subject of the psychiatrist/hypnotist.

  “Eleanor, I know how reluctant you are to go back to him. Believe me, I do understand. But you have given the only clue we have to capturing Parker Bennett and that is that he has or had a British driver’s license. The FBI has told me how very important it is to have that information and they have it because of you. If you can remember his full name under hypnosis, the FBI has a great chance of closing in on him. That could mean that all of those people whose lives have been so harmed may end up recovering a good portion of the monies they lost. Eleanor, you have got to reconsider.” Sean’s tone was pleading. “And it will surely help you with your own case.”

  “I know all that,” Eleanor replied. “It’s just . . .” She stopped, took a deep breath, and began again.

  “I could see how disappointed everyone was when I was there the last time. Then I started to think. Maybe I made it all up. Maybe I didn’t see a British license at all and my mind is playing t
ricks on me. Sean, what if I’m wrong?” Eleanor’s voice started to quiver.

  “Let the FBI worry about that,” Sean responded firmly. “It’s up to them to substantiate whether your memory is accurate and it’s far better they track down a false lead than if they have nothing at all to work with.”

  “Eleanor, you know what I’ve been telling you all along,” Frank interjected. “Sean’s right. Let the FBI decide what is and is not accurate. Go ahead and do it, honey.”

  Eleanor smiled, a tentative smile.

  “And they won’t think I’m making fools of them if I say things that turn out not to be true?” she asked.

  “Eleanor, oftentimes under hypnosis, people are able to complete a partial memory. People can recall part of a license plate number when they have witnessed a crime and seen a getaway car. They can’t remember the full plate but they did see it, which is why they remember part of it. Hypnosis helps them see the rest of the number. You have a partial memory. If you are hypnotized again, your mind may let you complete the memory of that name you saw. If you can, it’s a huge chunk of the puzzle in trying to apprehend Parker Bennett,” Sean said persuasively.

  “Go ahead, honey,” Frank encouraged. “Go ahead.”

  “Please, Eleanor,” Sean said. “Dr. Papetti is away for the next ten days at a medical convention. Let me make an appointment for you for a week from Thursday. Please.”

  Eleanor turned and stared out at the icy waters of the Hudson River.

  She looked back to Sean. “Make the appointment,” she said quietly.

  58

  Like his boss Rudy Schell, Jonathan Pierce was passionate about finding any evidence that would lead to Parker Bennett and tie Eric Bennett to his father’s crime. As an FBI agent, like Schell, Jonathan had learned to be a patient observer when he was on a surveillance job.

  Like Schell, he was tall, a little over six feet. Unlike Schell, Jonathan had a full head of dark brown hair and effortlessly kept in good physical shape. He had been a champion runner at Villanova University, which meant he could move faster than the vast majority of his fellow agents. Raised in Oyster Bay, Long Island, now a resident of Manhattan, he had an apartment in Greenwich Village and was watching with alarm as the Village lost the quaintness that had made it so special. We don’t need all those celebrities gobbling up the real estate, he reminded himself from time to time.

  Jonathan realized that living in the town house adjacent to the one where Anne Bennett resided was enjoyable. He liked Montclair and the people he had met there because of his supposed ownership of the new restaurant on Main Street.

  However, he was watching and listening with increased alarm as Eric Bennett, on his visits every other night, told his mother that he was seeing Lane Harmon more regularly and was going to ask her to marry him.

  Jonathan had Googled everything he could about Lane. He had seen the house in Georgetown where she grew up. He had found pictures of her as a little girl at the funeral of her father, Congressman Gregory Harmon. He had seen with pity the images of her with her hand on his coffin, her eyes flooded with tears, standing on the sidewalk outside the church.

  He knew what schools she had attended. He had studied pictures of her with her husband, Kenneth Kurner, and reflected on how happy she looked in them.

  She had lost her father in a plane crash when she was seven and her husband in a car crash when she was twenty-five and pregnant. How terrible for her, he thought. He had two healthy parents who lived on Long Island. He had two older married brothers and six nieces and nephews.

  She’s an interior designer now and assistant to the famous Glady Harper. She has a four-year-old daughter, Katie. Two weeks ago Lane had posted a picture on Facebook with Katie holding her painting of the father whom she had never known.

  Jon remembered the first time he had met Lane, when she came to Anne Bennett’s home six weeks ago. He had seen her car turning into the driveway and rushed out to meet her. His first impression had been of her beautiful eyes and her auburn hair, the slight wind tossing it around her shoulders.

  You can’t fall in love with a woman by eavesdropping, he thought, and then wondered if that was happening to him. Or maybe it’s because a couple of friends my age just got engaged, he tried to rationalize. Maybe turning thirty is giving all of us a jolt. Thirty-two next month, he reminded himself—who are you kidding?

  Yesterday, in a call from Rudy Schell, Jon had learned that an offer was being made to give up Parker Bennett. “It’s coming from that sleazebag lawyer Derek Landry,” Rudy said, “and I bet one thousand to one he’s representing Countess Sylvie de la Marco. We’re stalling him. It grates on me to give her a free ride and a two-million-dollar reward. But I have a hunch this is coming to a head, Jon,” he had concluded.

  Jonathan had the same feeling. If the countess led them to Parker Bennett, they all believed the trail would lead them to Eric too. And Lane was in the thick of it.

  When Eric Bennett and Lane went to dinner they were always tracked by a pair of FBI agents, a different couple every time, with a listening device on their table. But the conversations had so far yielded nothing. Lane had reassured Eric that she understood he was absolutely innocent and told him that she firmly cut off people who told her otherwise. She never revealed to him that she had been approached by the FBI.

  Get rid of him, Lane, was Jonathan’s constant thought. I’m worried about you.

  You’re going to get hurt.

  59

  Sylvie could not believe her luck. The two million dollars from Parker had come through and she had a date to go shopping with Barclay Cameron at Cartier. “I want to buy you an engagement ring of your choice,” he told her, “and also a wedding ring. Quite frankly except for our little romance, which was after I was a widower, I have never had a physical relationship with any woman other than my wife. I was faithful to her for over fifty years. I am not comfortable in the role of being anything but a husband to you.”

  Sylvie’s reaction was to think how charmingly naïve he was before, with genuine tears in her eyes, she said, “Oh, Barclay, yes, yes, yes.”

  Her next reaction was to make an appointment with another law firm, Burke & Edwards, the one that represented the de la Marco family’s holdings. Then she had Robert take pictures of all the newly decorated rooms in the apartment and have them enlarged.

  On Friday morning, Robert drove her to the prestigious law firm at Park Avenue and Eightieth Street. She always dressed prepared to be photographed, and if possible, even more so today. She was the Countess de la Marco. She wanted to shove that down the throat of everyone who worked at Burke & Edwards.

  The importance of her visit was obvious the moment she arrived. The receptionist treated her with effusive warmth and immediately led her into a conference room where she found the three senior partners of the firm awaiting her.

  They all stood when she came in. She was wearing one of her full-length Russian sables as well as carrying a sable fur muff and a small tote bag. She laid the muff on the table so that no one missed it. She thought that it added a little glamour. Countesses in the nineteenth century had all carried them.

  Then she reached into the tote bag and came right to the point. “According to the prenuptial agreement you prepared and I signed with my beloved husband Eduardo, besides the modest sum of money I received upon his death, I am entitled to lifelong use of my apartment including its maintenance unless I remarry.”

  “That is correct, Countess,” the senior partner, Clinton Chambers, confirmed.

  “I will lay my cards on the table,” Sylvie said. “I have a gentleman whose name you would recognize who cares deeply about me. He would like to marry me or live with me. It is my choice. If I decide to live with him, you will be paying the maintenance of the apartment and no one in the family will have use of it until I die. I assure you I am in very good health. My parents are still alive and both of my grandmothers lived past ninety-five.” She paused and smiled. “I know that apartment
was purchased fifty years ago for two hundred fifty thousand dollars, which of course is an incredibly low figure by today’s standards. It’s now worth close to twenty million dollars because of its size and location.”

  She opened the tote bag. “I have recently undertaken a large redecoration and some minor renovation of the apartment by the famed interior designer Glady Harper. I would like you to pass these enlarged pictures around. As you can see the apartment is now in pristine condition and exquisitely furnished.”

  She waited as they passed the photographs around. Clinton Chambers said, “You are right, Countess, the apartment is very beautiful. What do you want from us?”

  “I want you to buy from me my legal interest in the apartment at the bargain price of ten million plus the five million I spent for the recent redecorating. You all know that buyers will scramble to take it off your hands for far more than that or you can rent it for an exorbitant fee.”

  “Those are hardly the terms of your prenup agreement, Countess,” Chambers said frostily.

  Sylvie said, “They may not be, but the de la Marcos are salivating to get that apartment and you know it. Eduardo had three sons and two daughters. I only knew them slightly but I can guarantee all five of them will fight each other for it.”

  She stood up. “I want my answer in forty-eight hours. When I have it, I will be out of the apartment in twenty-four hours, but of course, I will be carrying a certified check for fifteen million dollars in my hand.”

  She could see how reluctantly the three partners got to their feet. “Just remember,” she said, “I have no problem at all being a fiancée, until death do us part.”

  Robert was waiting downstairs at the front entrance of the building. When the doorman closed the door behind her, he said, “I trust your meeting was pleasant, Countess.”