Before I Say Goodbye

by Mary Higgins Clark

  “Are the boys upstairs?” Nancy asked.

  “Watching some movie in their room. I’m ready to pack it in.”

  “Me too. Will you close up?”

  “Sure.” As Jack turned off lights and checked to be certain the front and back doors were securely locked, he continued to mull over the news of the boat explosion. If indeed it was confirmed that Sam Krause was on that boat, that the explosion was no accident would have to be considered a definite possibility. It was no wonder someone would want to get rid of him before he was brought in for questioning. Krause knew too much—and he wasn’t the kind of guy to view a long prison sentence as an option.

  Too bad, though, that four other people had to die just to get rid of Krause; surely whoever did it could have found a more economical way to waste him, Jack thought. Whoever did it must have been hard as nails. He knew of more than a few people who fit that description.

  Wednesday, June 14

  seventeen

  “NELL, I can’t tell you how sorry I am. I still can’t believe any of this—it’s just inconceivable.”

  Peter Lang was seated opposite Nell in the living room of her apartment. His face was bruised and his lip swollen. He looked genuinely shaken, and his demeanor was far different from the supremely confident persona he usually projected. Nell realized that for the first time she actually felt some empathy for this man. In the past, she always had been put off by Peter’s manner. “Cock of the walk,” as Mac scornfully called it.

  “I was so banged up that when I got home that night, I just turned off the phone and went to bed. The media called down to Florida and reached my parents. It’s damn lucky my mother or father didn’t have a heart attack. Mom couldn’t stop crying when she realized I was okay. She still doesn’t believe it. She called me four times yesterday alone.”

  “I can understand that,” Nell said, as she considered what her own reaction might have been had Adam phoned and said that he hadn’t been on the boat, that something had delayed him and he had told Sam to run the meeting without him. Suppose . . .

  But that would never have happened. There was nothing to suppose. The others wouldn’t have gone out on Adam’s boat without him, she reminded herself. Adam’s boat—named after me. Something I never even wanted to set foot on that he named after me—and it became his casket, Nell thought.

  No, not his casket! Sunday they had found body parts that had been positively identified as being Jimmy Ryan’s. As of now, only he would have a funeral with a casket. The odds of finding and identifying any more bodies, or parts, were almost negligible. Adam, Sam Krause and Winifred must have been blown to bits or incinerated. Whatever pieces of them still existed probably had by now been swept by the strong tides past the Verrazano Bridge and out into the Atlantic.

  “Not incinerated; cremated, or buried at sea. Try to think of it that way, Nell.” That was what Monsignor Duncan had told her when she had arranged with him for Adam’s memorial Mass.

  “There’ll be a Mass for Adam on Thursday,” she told Lang, breaking the silence that had fallen between them.

  Lang said nothing for a moment, then began speaking softly. “There are a lot of rumors flying about, Nell. Have the police confirmed that it was a bomb that destroyed the boat?”

  “Not confirmed it officially, no.”

  But she knew that a bomb was suspected, and it was a thought that wouldn’t let go. Why would anyone do that? Was it a random act of violence, like when people randomly attack strangers on busy streets? Or maybe it was a case of a “have-not” person, jealous of the owner of the sleek new boat, wanting to punish him. Whatever the reason, it was something she needed to know, needed to get out of the way before she could find closure to this terrible thing.

  Jimmy Ryan’s wife needed an answer too. She had phoned the day after the tragedy, looking for some understanding as to why her husband was dead. “Mrs. Cauliff, I feel as though I know you,” she said. “I’ve seen you on television, and I read your column, and over the years I have read about you and how your grandfather brought you up after your parents died. I feel terribly sorry for you. You’ve had a lot of grief in your life. I don’t know what they’re telling you about my husband, but I don’t want you to think someone I loved caused your husband’s death.

  “Jimmy did not do this. He was a victim the same as your husband. Yes, Jimmy was depressed. He’d been out of work a long time, and we had run up a lot of bills. But things were getting better—in great part because of your husband. I know Jimmy was grateful to him or to whoever it was in his firm who passed his application to the Krause Construction Company. But now the police are insinuating that Jimmy caused that explosion. I want you to know that even if Jimmy was suicidal—and as much as it pains me to admit it, he may have been—he would never, ever have caused another human being’s death. Never! He was a good man, as well as being a wonderful father and husband. I knew him, and he would never have done something like that.”

  Pictures of Jimmy Ryan’s funeral had been on page three of the Post and on page one of the News. Lisa Ryan, with her three children huddled beside her, was shown walking behind the casket that held the shattered remains of a husband and father. Nell shut her eyes.

  “Nell, next week sometime I’d like to go over some business matters with you,” Lang said softly. “There are a few decisions that have to be made, and I need your input. But there’s time enough for that.” He stood up. “Try to get some rest. Are you able to sleep at night?”

  “A fair amount, all things considered.”

  She was glad to close the door behind Peter Lang, ashamed of the resentment she felt that he was the one who had been spared. His bruises would fade. The swelling on his lip would be gone in a few days.

  “Adam,” she said aloud. “Adam,” she repeated quietly, as if he were listening.

  Of course there was no answer.

  The storm Friday night had broken the warm spell. Now it was unseasonably cool for early June. The heating system in the building had been switched over to air conditioning, and even though she had turned that off, the apartment still felt chilly. Nell hugged her arms and went into the bedroom to get a sweater.

  The wonderful Liz had shown up at the apartment Saturday morning, carrying a grocery bag. “You’re going to eat,” she had said briskly. “I didn’t know what you had in the house, so I brought grapefruit, bacon and fresh-from-the-oven bagels.”

  Over second cups of coffee she had said, “Nell, I know it’s none of my business, yet it is my business. Mac is heartbroken for you. Don’t shut him out.”

  “He shut Adam out, and right now I’m having trouble forgiving him for that.”

  “But you know he had your best interests at heart. He felt that what was right for you—meaning running for office—was ultimately the right thing for your marriage as well.”

  “Well, I guess we’ll never know, will we?”

  “Think about it.”

  Since that morning, Liz had been over every day. This morning she had commented sadly, “Mac still hasn’t heard from you, Nell.”

  “I’ll see him at the service. We’ll go to lunch here with the others afterward. Right now I need to adjust without him bullying me.”

  Adjust here in the home I shared with Adam for the past three years, she thought. Adjust to being alone.

  She had bought the apartment eleven years ago, after she graduated from Georgetown, using money that had been held in trust for her until she was twenty-one. It was a time when the volatile real estate market in New York was in one of its lean periods, when sellers far outnumbered buyers, and the spacious co-op had turned out to be an excellent investment.

  “Whatever little nest I carry you off to won’t be in this league,” Adam had joked when they began to talk of marriage. “Give me ten years, though, and I promise the picture will change.”

  “Why not spend those ten years right here? I happen to love this place.”

  She had cleared one of the two large
bedroom closets for him, and taken from Mac’s brownstone the antique chest-on-chest dresser that had belonged to her father. She went over to that dresser now and picked up the oval-shaped silver tray that lay next to their wedding picture. The tray was where Adam always put his watch and keys and change and wallet when he undressed at night.

  I hadn’t realized how alone I’d always felt until we were married and he was here with me all the time, she thought. Thursday night he changed in the guest room. He didn’t want to wake me up. And I didn’t let on that I was awake because I didn’t want to have to talk about my day and tell him that I had decided to run for Mac’s old seat.

  Suddenly it seemed fiercely important and disturbing that she had missed that last night of watching him go through his familiar bedtime ritual. Liz had suggested that she come over sometime next week and help Nell pack up Adam’s clothing and personal effects. “You keep saying his death doesn’t feel real to you, Nell, and I don’t think you’ll start to heal until it does. Perhaps it will feel more real when all the reminders aren’t there.”

  Not yet, though, Nell thought. Not yet!

  The phone rang. Reluctantly she picked it up. “Hello.”

  “Mrs. Cauliff?”

  “Yes.”

  “This is Detective Brennan. Would it be convenient if my colleague Detective Sclafani and I came over to talk with you?”

  Not now, Nell thought. I need to be alone now. I need to hold something that was Adam’s and feel close to him.

  Aunt Gert had taught her about contacting a lost loved one by having her hold an object that had belonged to her mother. She remembered that it was six months after their deaths; she was upstairs in her room in Mac’s house, curled up in a chair, clutching a book on which she was supposed to write a report. She didn’t hear Aunt Gert come in. And she wasn’t reading.

  I was just sitting there, staring out the window, Nell thought. I loved them both so much, but at that moment it was my mother I wanted. I needed my mother.

  Gert came in and knelt beside me. Her voice was so soft. “Say a name.”

  I whispered, “Mommy.”

  “I sensed that,” she said, “and I brought something for you. One of the things that your grandpa didn’t think worth keeping.” It was that ivory box that Mom kept on her dresser when I was little. It had a special woodsy scent that I loved. When and Mom and Dad were on a trip, I would go into their room and get it, and whenever I opened that box, I felt so close to Mom.

  It happened again that day. The little box hadn’t been opened in so long that the woodsy scent was very pungent. And at that moment, I felt as though Mom were there, in the room with me. I remember I asked Aunt Gert how she knew to bring that particular item.

  “I just knew,” she said. “And remember, your mother and dad will be around as long as you need them. You’ll be the one to free them, whenever you are able to let them go.”

  Mac hates it when she talks like that, Nell thought. But Gert was right. And after my parents saved me in Maui, I could let them go. And I did. But I’m still not ready to let Adam go. I want to hold on to something that will make me feel he is still close to me. I have to have him with me for at least a little while longer—before I say good-bye.

  “Mrs. Cauliff, are you all right?” the detective asked, breaking the long silence.

  “Oh, yes. I’m sorry. I’m still having a little trouble adjusting,” she said, her voice halting.

  “Look, I don’t like to press you at this time, but it really is important that we meet with you now.”

  Nell shook her head, a gesture she had picked up from Mac, his unconscious sign of displeasure when he didn’t want to give voice to his objection to something. “All right. Come over if you must,” she told Brennan crisply, and then hung up.

  eighteen

  ON WEDNESDAY AFTERNOON, Lisa’s next-door neighbor, Brenda Curren, and her seventeen-year-old daughter, Morgan, arrived to pick up the Ryan kids, Kyle, Kelly and Charley, and take them to a movie and then out to dinner.

  “Go get in the car with Morgan,” Brenda ordered, “I want to talk to your mom for a minute.” She waited until the three were outside before saying, “Lisa, don’t look so worried. You know they’ll be fine with us. You were right to keep them home from school today, but now you need some time to yourself.”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” Lisa said dully, “all I see stretching out ahead of me is time. When I think about it, I wonder what in God’s name I’m going to do with all of those hours and days.” She looked at her neighbor, saw the look of concern in her eyes. “But you’re right, of course. I do need some time alone. I have to go through Jimmy’s desk. I have to file for Social Security for the children. At least that will offer some income while I figure out what I’m going to do.”

  “You do have insurance, don’t you Lisa?” Brenda’s pleasant face creased with worry. “I’m sorry,” she added hastily. “It’s none of my business, of course. It’s just that Ed is so insurance conscious that it’s the first thing I think of.”

  “We have some,” Lisa said. Enough to bury Jimmy, she thought, but that’s about it. She kept the thought to herself, though; she would not admit that even to a good friend like Brenda.

  Keep your business to yourself—that was a warning she had heard all her life from her grandmother: It’s nobody’s affair what you have or don’t have, Lisa. Keep them guessing.

  Only there’s not much to guess about, Lisa thought, feeling the weight over her pressing harder. We still owe $14,000 on credit cards, computed at 18 percent interest a month.

  “Lisa, Jimmy always kept up this place so well. Ed isn’t nearly as handy as Jimmy was, but he asked me to tell you that if anything comes up that needs fixing, he’ll do his best to take care of it for you. You know what I mean. Plumbers and electricians cost a fortune.”

  “Yes, they do.”

  “Lisa, we’re all so sorry about Jimmy. He was a great guy, and we love you both. We’d do anything to help you out. You know that.”

  Lisa saw the tears Brenda was trying to blink back and tried to will herself to smile. “I know you would. And you are helping me. Go ahead now and take my kids off my hands.”

  She walked Brenda to the door, then headed back down the narrow hallway. The kitchen was large enough for a table and chairs, small enough to feel perpetually cramped. The writing desk was built in, a feature the real estate agent seemed to consider a stunning addition when they had first looked at the house all those years ago.

  “You just don’t get built-ins in this price range,” the agent had gushed as she pointed it out.

  Lisa looked at the stack of envelopes on the desk. The mortgage, gas and phone bills were already almost a week overdue. If Jimmy had come home, they would have sat there together and paid them over the weekend, to avoid late charges. My job now, Lisa thought, something I get to do alone with all the time I have.

  She wrote those checks and with a sinking heart pulled out another stack of envelopes, this one held together with a rubber band. The credit-card bills; so many of them. She didn’t dare to make more than a minimum payment on any of them this month.

  She debated about cleaning out the one desk drawer. Deep and wide, it had become a catchall for the junk mail that should have been thrown out immediately. Here are coupons we never got around to using, Lisa thought. And even when we didn’t have any extra money, and no way to afford them, Jimmy tore pictures of tools out of catalogs—all things he’d want someday, when we got caught up.

  She grasped a handful of loose papers and caught sight of an envelope with columns of figures. She didn’t need to examine it to know what it was. How often had she seen Jimmy sitting at this desk, adding up the bills, agonizing as they mounted? It had become a familiar sight these last years.

  And then he would go downstairs and sit at his workbench for a couple of hours, pretending to be fixing something, Lisa thought. He didn’t want me to see how worried he was.

  Why didn’t he stop
worrying once he went back to work? Lisa wondered, asking herself once more the question that had plagued her over these last months. Almost without thinking, she crossed the room and opened the door to the basement. As she walked down the stairs, she tried not to think about how hard Jimmy had labored to transform the dreary space below into a comfortable family room and a workroom for himself.

  She went to the workroom and turned on the light. The kids and I almost never came in here, she thought. It was like a sanctuary for Jimmy. He said he was afraid that someone would pick up a sharp tool and get hurt. It hurt Lisa now to see that the space was painfully neat, unlike the times when the broad table had been cluttered with the tools necessary for whatever had been Jimmy’s current project. Now they were all in place, all lined up on the Peg-Board over the table. The saw horses that often held sheets of beaverboard or plywood were standing together in a corner next to the file cabinet.

  The file cabinet—Jimmy used it for income tax records and papers he thought worth keeping. It was one other thing that she’d have to examine carefully eventually. Lisa opened the top drawer, glanced at the carefully labeled manila folders. As she had expected, they contained sequentially numbered income tax statements.

  Opening the second drawer, she saw that Jimmy had taken out the dividers. Neatly folded blueprints and specification sheets were piled on top of each other. She knew what they were: they were his plans—plans for finishing the basement, plans for the built-in bunks in Kyle’s room, for the screened-in porch off the living room.

  Maybe even the plans for our dream house, she thought, the one we were going to have someday. He made them for me as a Christmas present two and a half years ago, before he lost his job. He asked me to tell him exactly what I wanted to have in a house, and he drew plans to accommodate everything I asked for.