The Lacey Confession

by Richard Greener

  After dinner Walter and Harry sat outside on the front porch. It was freezing, but they wore the heavy, down-lined jackets they bought back in Santa Fe and they were bundled up against the night air. The cold wind on their faces was compromised by the hot tea they held in their gloved hands. The steam warmed their cheeks. Neither man had seen a sky like this one before. Pitch-black, deep and wide beyond measure, tipping their sense of perspective, forcing them to look upward. With no nearby lights illuminating the horizon, nothing masked the stars. In the distance, only the abrupt absence of a million sparkling lights indicated the demarcation line separating land and sky, planet and space. All those bright shining spots in the highest regions of the night sky—the sheer number of stars they could plainly see—was enough to make both men gawk like teenage boys at the sight of their very first naked girl.

  “Harry, I need you to do something while you’re here.”

  “You don’t get to see this, do you?—not in a city anyway.”

  “The stars?” said Walter. “No. You’re right.”

  “Can you just imagine life before electricity? Everyone, everywhere on the Earth saw—this—every day, every time the sun set. It’s no wonder we’re a spiritual species.”

  “I need for you to read the document you have, carefully. And I need for you to figure out who would kill to keep it secret. I don’t mean, who wants to keep it quiet. That’s not enough. I mean who would kill for it. That’s a decision you’ll have to make. Maybe it’s a list. I don’t know. Maybe it’s just one.”

  “The Kennedys?”

  “No,” said Walter. “Not the Kennedys. They sent Sean Dooley. I’m not making a judgment about how much the Kennedy family might want to keep this confession from ever reaching the public. I suppose they have a strong desire. But they sent Dooley and he’s no killer.”

  “That’s why you let him go?”

  “He wanted the document, and he might have pushed somebody around if he needed to. But he was unarmed and not skilled or experienced enough to beat anyone to death.”

  “You know that? How?”

  “His hands. Did you see them? No marks. No scars. His fingers were never broken. Same for his face. He’s no fighter. Bust and grab, break and enter maybe. But no fighter.”

  “Still, the Kennedys . . .”

  “No, Harry. Sending Sean Dooley, when they were absolutely sure the document would be there, makes no sense, no sense that is if they killed Sir Anthony and McHenry Brown trying to find it. You don’t send a killer to find something and a civilian to get it. Forget the Kennedys. Find me somebody else.”

  “Well, so far anyway, I haven’t read about any other world leader Frederick Lacey assassinated.”

  “Don’t be a smart ass, Harry.”

  “How did Dooley know where we were staying?”

  “I don’t know, yet. I have a few ideas. Your list might help me. Harry, let me ask you a question.”

  “Shoot.”

  “Why didn’t you go to Scotland Yard or the Police? Why didn’t you just walk into the American Embassy and give yourself up? You could have. You hadn’t committed a crime of any kind. Screw Lacey’s confession. Hand it over. Wash your hands of the whole mess. Why not?”

  “I did what Devereaux told me to do.”

  “And you never thought about what I just asked? Never occurred to you?”

  “I suppose not. The President of the United States told me to listen to Devereaux. I suppose I never thought of doing anything different. Should I have?”

  “Not for me to say,” Walter said. “Not for anyone to say, except you. Anyway, we should look ahead of us, not behind.”

  “What about you?” Harry asked. “What are you going to do while I try to make a definitive list of the people who want to kill me?”

  “Kill us, you mean.”

  “Us? Why us?”

  “Recall what happened to McHenry Brown’s companion?”

  “Oh, I forgot. Sorry about that. You’re right. I really am sorry. I know you’re in danger just being around me. However, I’ll ask you again, Walter, what do we do next?”

  “I don’t know yet,” Walter answered. “You’re safe here and,” he added, “for now that’s good enough. I can’t stay here with you. You know that?”

  “I guessed as much.”

  “I have work to do, Harry. People to see and places to go. But you’re safe here.”

  Walter’s cell phone rang at seven-fifteen the next morning. It woke him from his hard, wooden sleep, but whoever was calling would have had a hard time figuring that out from his voice. Decades of such calls had fine-tuned his senses. He sounded like the middle of the afternoon.

  “Hello,” he said.

  “Abby O’Malley. How are you doing?”

  “Fine. Just fine. And yourself, Ms. O’Malley?”

  “I like a man who’s up early, Mr. Sherman. Especially a man who sounds like it.”

  “So you woke me,” he said, surprised she caught it. “It’s okay. And please call me Walter.”

  “Very well, Walter. Where do we begin?”

  “I’ll be home in the next day or two. What day is it today?”

  “Thursday. I know, it gets a little confusing when you fly halfway around the world, doesn’t it?”

  “Come see me Sunday. You know where I live?”

  “I do. St. John.”

  “Good. Get off the ferry, walk across the square to a place called Billy’s. Look for an old black man sitting at a table closest to the front. He’ll tell you where to go. See you Sunday?”

  “See you Sunday.”

  “Dress comfortably,” he said before cutting the connection.

  Harry had been given very specific instructions. Walter wanted everything understood. No screwups. He was to use the prepaid, use-and-lose cell phone to call Walter every day. “I have to assume someone is bugging my phone. You call me with that prepaid phone and there’s no way to trace it back here. Just remember not to ever say anything about where you are. Not a word. Call me at eight o’clock in the morning on the first day,” Walter told him. Then he was to add an hour for each day thereafter. “So, four days from now you’ll call me at noon. And, on the fifth day—at one o’clock. Got it?” Harry assured him he knew how to tell time. “Don’t call at any other time, unless it’s an emergency.”

  “An emergency?”

  “Someone shows up. And if that happens you know what to do?”

  “You think I can get away with it?”

  “It’s been done before,” said Walter. “Remember Dustin Hoffman in Rain Man? Just act like him and say your name is Michael DelGrazo.”

  A layer of gray winter clouds obscured the ground from Boston to the Carolinas. After that, it was clear skies, bright blue and sunny all the way to St. Thomas. Flight time was nearly four hours, and Abby had been awake since before five o’clock. The American Airlines plane lifted off from Logan at 7:40 am. After a pretty decent breakfast, she considered taking a short nap, but Devereaux had sent her too much material to sleep. Instead, she opened the large envelope and removed a single, full file folder. It was unmarked. His brief cover note was signed with a simple LD. Very much in the Kennedy style, she thought, and wondered if he signed all his papers that way or if he did it only for her. Louis had a sly side, a dry sense of humor meant as much to entertain himself as for anyone else’s benefit. Maybe this was his way of telling her he knew.

  Early on she learned the Kennedys communicated, in writing among themselves, with initials—RFK being the first ones she saw. Later she had the President’s personal memos Bobby gave her to read. They were each initialed JFK. Whenever Abby received something from Rose Kennedy, all there was to show Rose had sent it was a little RK at the bottom. Like a good soldier, she assumed the position, took the Kennedys as Romans, and began signing her memos, letters and longer papers AO. The current generation of Kennedys, even those bearing the names of their Kennedy sons-in-law’s fathers, were never entirely sure what Abby O’Ma
lley did. She had little to do with them, but when they were called upon, they were attentive and responsive, deferential. Abby O’Malley was a force to be reckoned with within the family. Among those younger Kennedys, she was referred to as AK, not meaning Abby Kennedy, as Abby first thought, but rather “Almost Kennedy.” Abby never minded. She decided early on that they used it, if not as a true compliment, certainly as a sign of respect. Going over Devereaux’s gift package, she recalled her conversation with him a few days earlier.

  “Are you taking your bathing suit?” he asked.

  “I’m sixty-eight, Louis.” Boston was freezing, but she was, of course, aware that summer never vacated the Virgin Islands.

  “I didn’t know there was an age limit, Abby. I hear the beaches on St. John are among the world’s best.”

  “You haven’t said ‘you’re still a beautiful woman, Abby O’Malley.’”

  “Self-evident,” said Devereaux. “What are you going to offer him?”

  “Money,” she said. “I find that usually works quite well.”

  “Usually,” he replied. “But not always. Sherman’s as close to unbuyable as I’ve ever seen—for a sane man, that is—and Harry Levine . . . ?” He left the question hanging there. “There will be other buyers, you know that. Not to mention those who might see no reason to pay for something they can just take. You’re not the only player on this field.”

  “We know that. I’m fully cognizant of the damage already done. I can’t worry about that. I need Lacey’s confession. Until I have it I can’t be concerned about protecting it, or him. There is nothing I can do to help Walter Sherman, except take it off his hands as soon as possible.”

  “Sunday?”

  “I hope so.”

  “I hope so too. But it doesn’t seem likely, does it?”

  “He’ll be ready, I believe. He thinks it was us—me—who ordered the killings in England—Sir Anthony Wells and McHenry Brown. That will help. It always does when you think you’re dealing with someone serious. Do I need to convince him we . . .”

  “He already knows Abby.”

  “Knows? Knows what, Louis?”

  “That you are not responsible for the killings.”

  “Not responsible? Why do you say that?”

  “From what you told me about the way he handled your man in Amsterdam, I’d say he believes you’re harmless. I’m also just as sure Sherman also knows that somebody out there isn’t.”

  Abby had been worried about that. Since this began, since Frederick Lacey’s death, she was well aware she wasn’t the only one waiting for Lacey’s diary, his personal journal. Whoever it was who really killed Sir Anthony Wells and the American Ambassador, she couldn’t be sure how much, if anything, they knew about the Kennedys. If others wanted Lacey’s document, for their own reasons, reasons unknown and perhaps unknowable to Abby O’Malley, and if they got it, they would learn the secret of the Kennedys. What sort of blackmail might ensue? She couldn’t let that happen.

  “Do you think he knows who is doing the killing?” she asked Devereaux.

  “Doing, not done?” he responded. “You expect more? No, I don’t think Sherman knows that, not yet. Give him enough time and he will. He’s that good, better even. If I told you what this guy has done . . .”

  “I hear it in your voice, Louis. You’re an admirer of Mr. Sherman.”

  “I met him, you know.”

  “I declare—you’re star struck, Mr. Devereaux.”

  “Had dinner with him. He can be shaken, but not easily. Once he reads it, he’ll figure out who it is.”

  “Do you know?”

  “Do I know? Of course not. How can I know without reading whatever it is Lacey’s written? I suspect there’s something in his confession—perhaps unrelated to the Kennedy family—something important to someone. Someone we don’t know. And there’s always the possibility that whoever that someone might be, they might kill to get the document, only to discover that whatever it is they’re looking for is not there.”

  “No guarantees?”

  “Guarantees? There is no guarantee Sherman even has the document with him. I’d say the odds were against you there. You can’t get it if he doesn’t have it, can you? Worse yet, Abby, it could just as well be that there is something in Lacey’s journal—forget what he did to the Kennedys—something that’s not just embarrassing, something instead that’s valuable.”

  “Killing Joe Jr., John and Robert Kennedy is not just embarrassing, Louis. It’s historical treachery, an obscenity of mammoth proportions.”

  “I meant no offense, really.”

  “None taken.”

  Tucker Poesy was enjoying the day. The beach at the Caneel Bay resort was crowded, and she liked it that way. The sun was hot and the water was surprisingly warm. She hated long trips and she was only now getting her land legs back. The quickest way to St. John was to fly nonstop from London to New York, stay over a night and catch the early morning flight to St. Thomas. No one told her there would be a ferry. How else could you go from St. Thomas to St. John? She would find it herself. By the time she arrived on the smaller of the two islands, it was Friday afternoon. Devereaux told her to look for Sherman on Monday. She was determined to get a suntan and catch up on her sleep over the weekend.

  Devereaux called her two days ago. Walter Sherman was going to show up at home, on St. John, he told her. Harry Levine would not be with him. He was unsure if Sherman would bring the document with him to St. John. Devereaux figured Sherman’s plan was to flush out the competitors, setting up shop for bids. He did not tell The Bambino about Abby O’Malley. He did say potential buyers would appear within days.

  “Get there,” he ordered her.

  “Do you want him dead?” she asked.

  “No, no,” he chuckled. “Don’t even try. I don’t want you dead either.”

  “Yeah,” she said, “I read that stuff from Vietnam. Used to be a bit of a nutcase, don’t you think? I doubt he’s still the same man. Not at his age.”

  “Hardly,” said Devereaux, a man with the keenest sense of the evil one man can do to another. “Had it been you, you would have done the same. And, watch out. He’s not that old.”

  Ike saw her first. She strolled leisurely and unaccompanied across the square on her way to Billy’s. She had not gotten off the ferry. That’s for sure, thought Ike. That boat was still at sea, on its way from St. Thomas. He knew immediately she was no ordinary bushwhacker. She had the look of money—big money. He couldn’t say exactly how he knew it, what it was he got a glimpse of, but he knew it when he saw it. There was well off and there was wealthy. There was no mistaking her. Such women, he thought, particularly ones like her in her later middle age, did not travel alone. But she was.

  Ike knew a few things. He was confident he hadn’t lost much. Not up here, he told himself, tapping his noggin. “Old is in the body,” he said, more than once. As far as he was concerned, he was as clear headed and sharp as ever. Hell, it could have been 1940 as far as his mind was concerned. Ike was primed to judge this woman, coming his way, without any more information. If Walter could do it, why couldn’t he? Walter was the kind of guy, Ike always figured, to make judgments about strangers right off the bat. Ike had watched him do that, more than once. No reason why he couldn’t do it too. She’s coming my way, he thought, with no idea in the world why. The old man was proud and certain. It thrilled him when she approached, stopped at his table and smiled.

  “How do you do, sir,” she said, then quickly added, as she watched Ike struggling to stand, “Please, do not get up, not on my account.”

  “Ike’s the name and it’s my pleasure to meet you Miss . . . ?”

  “Abby,” she said, reaching out to shake the old man’s hand. He smiled at her in a way she knew he’d been doing for a million years. All yellow teeth and friendly manner. For just an instant she pictured him, fifty or sixty years ago, offering the same toothy grin to a lovely island girl. Undoubtedly, he had more hair then. “I und
erstand you can direct me to Walter Sherman.”

  “If I had to guess,” Ike said, “in an instant, you know, not with any thought behind it—if I had to guess who you came to see, other than myself, of course, I’d have said Walter. Sure thing, I would have. He’s right over there.” Ike didn’t point, motion with his head, move his upper body in some way, or shift his eyes at all. It was understood he meant somewhere inside the bar. “And I’ll bet he’s expecting you too, even if he don’t know you’re coming. If you know what I mean.” With that, Ike kissed her hand and reached deep inside his pocket for a fresh cigarette. “Over there, at the end . . .”

  “I know,” she said.

  Ike was right, and he was wrong. Walter was expecting her. But he also knew she was coming. He spotted her making her way up the bar, toward him. The day was warm, yet she showed no signs of perspiration. Her hair was in place. She had no tan to speak of, not even a fresh redness, the sort of lobster look commonly seen on new arrivals. Most revealing was her style of dress. She was indeed comfortably dressed, but unlike every other woman in Billy’s, Abby O’Malley did not wear shorts or jeans and she did not have on flip-flops or Nikes. Instead she wore a light blue summer dress, subtly festooned with small yellow flowers. She walked in heels, low ones, but heels nonetheless. Not work clothes, but still city clothes. She was there for business. When Abby was still ten or fifteen feet away, she smiled at Walter. Introductions were politely called for but he already knew they were unnecessary. Walter rose from his seat.