Nighttime Is My Time: A Novel (7 page)

And guess again if you think you know what I'm worth, he added mentally.

Rita Emerson shrugged. "You always said that you had to have the last word. You know something, Jack? Underneath what passes for veneer, you're still the same tacky little janitor who resented pushing mops after school. And if you don't play fair in the divorce, I might have to tell the authorities you confessed to me that you arranged to have that fire set in the medical building ten years ago."

He stared at her. "I never told you that."

"But they will believe me, won't they? You worked in that building and knew every inch of it, and you wanted that property for the mall you were planning. After the fire you were able to buy it cheap." She raised an eyebrow. "Run along and get your school tie, Jack. I'll be on my way out of here in a couple of hours. Maybe you can pick up one of your fellow classmates and have a real reunion here tonight. Be my guest."

16

The sense of finally beginning to take action gave Jean a measure of peace. Alice Sommers had promised to call Sam Deegan and try to arrange a meeting for Sunday afternoon. "He often stops by on Karen's anniversary anyhow," she said.

I don't have to go home tomorrow, Jean thought. I can stay at the hotel for at least a week. I'm good at research. Maybe I can find someone who worked in Dr. Connors' office, a nurse or secretary who can tell me where he registered the births of the babies whose adoptions he handled. Maybe he kept copies of his records elsewhere. Sam Deegan could help me find out how to get them, assuming they exist.

Dr. Connors had taken the baby from her in Chicago. Was it possible he had registered her birth there? Had the adoptive mother traveled with him to Chicago, or had he taken Lily back to Cornwall himself?

Anyone in the reunion group who was driving separately to West Point had been told to park in the lot near the Thayer Hotel. Jean felt a lump in her throat as she drove through the gate onto the grounds of the academy. As she had so often in the past few days, she thought of the last time she had been there, at the graduation of Reed's class, when she watched his mother and father accept his diploma and sword.

Most of the Stonecroft group were on tours of the Point. They were scheduled to meet at twelve-thirty for lunch at the Thayer. Then they would watch the trooping of colors before going to the game.

Before joining the others, Jean headed for the cemetery to visit Reed's grave. It was a long walk through the grounds, but she welcomed the time for reflection. I found so much peace here, she thought. What would my life have been like if Reed had lived, if my daughter were with me now, not somewhere with strangers? She had not dared go to Reed's funeral. It had taken place on her graduation day from Stonecroft. Her mother and father had never met Reed and knew virtually nothing about him. There was no way to explain that she could not go to her own graduation.

She walked past Cadet Chapel, remembering the concerts she had attended there, at first alone and then later a few times with Reed. She walked past the monuments that bore names emblazoned in history, as she wended her way to section 23 and stood in front of the headstone that bore his name, Lt. Carroll Reed Thornton, Jr. There was a single rose propped against the headstone with a small envelope attached to it. Jean gasped. Her name was written on the envelope. She picked up the rose and tore the card from the envelope. Her hands began to tremble as she read the few words it contained: "Jean, this is for you. Knew you'd stop by."

On the walk back to Thayer she tried to compose herself. It almost has to mean that someone at the reunion knows about Lily and is playing this cat-and-mouse game with me, she thought. Who else would have known I was going to be here today and would anticipate that I'd go to Reed's grave?

There are forty-two from our class here, she thought. That narrows the field of who might be contacting me from anyone in the world to one of forty-two. I'm going to find out who it is and where Lily is. Maybe she doesn't know she's adopted. I won't interfere with her life, but I need to know that she's all right. I'd just like to see her once, even from a distance.

Her footsteps quickened. There was only today and tomorrow to try to see everyone face-to-face, to try to learn who had been in the cemetery. I'll talk to Laura, she thought. She doesn't miss anything. If she was on the tour that included the cemetery, she might have noticed something.

***

The moment she stepped inside the room reserved for the Stonecroft luncheon, Mark Fleischman came up to her. "The tour was really interesting," he said. "I'm sorry you missed it. I'm ashamed to say that even when I was living in Cornwall, the only times I came down to West Point were to jog. But you were here pretty often in senior year, weren't you? I mean, I remember you wrote some articles about it for the school paper."

"Yes, I was," Jean said carefully. A kaleidoscope of memories rushed through her mind. Sunday afternoons in spring, walking down the footpath at Trophy Point and settling on one of the benches to write. The pink granite benches had been donated to the Point by the class of 1939. She could recite the words inscribed on them: DIGNITY, DISCIPLINE, COURAGE, INTEGRITY, LOYALTY. Even the lettering on those benches made me realize the pettiness of the life my parents were leading, she thought.

She wrenched her attention back to Mark. "Our leader, Jack Emerson, has decreed that the honorees are supposed to mingle and sit anywhere today" he was saying, "which is going to pose a problem for Laura. Did you notice how she's been spreading her charms? She was flirting with our television executive, Gordon, our playwright, Carter, and our comedian, Robby, at the dinner table last night. On the bus she was sitting next to Jack Emerson and making a fuss over
him
. He's become quite the real estate magnate, I gather."

"You're the one specializing in adolescent behavior, Mark. Laura always went for the guys who were successful. Don't you think that carries through into adulthood? And, anyhow, she might as well concentrate on those four. Her ex-boyfriends, such as Doug Hanover, are either not here or have their wives in tow." Jean had to sound amused.

Mark was smiling, but as she studied him, Jean saw a change in his expression, a tightening in his eyes. You, too? she wondered. And she realized that it was disappointing to think that Mark had been another one to have a crush on Laura, and maybe even still had one. Well, she wanted to have a chance to talk to Laura, and if he wanted to be with her, too, that was fine. "Let's sit with Laura," she suggested. "I always did in school." For a moment the image of the lunch table at Stonecroft surfaced vividly in her mind. She saw there Catherine and Debra and Cindy and Gloria and Alison.

And Laura and me.

And Laura… and me…

17

The Owl had expected that the disappearance of a woman in Surrey Meadows, New York, would not be reported in time to make the Saturday morning papers but was pleased that it was featured on both the radio and television. Before and after breakfast, as he soaked his arm, he watched and listened to the reports. The pain in his arm emanated from where the dog had sunk his teeth; he considered it a punishment for his carelessness. He should have noticed the leash in the woman's hand before he stopped the car and grabbed her. The German shepherd had appeared out of nowhere, leaping onto him, snarling as it attacked. Fortunately, he was able to grab the tire jack that he always kept on the front seat when he went on that kind of outing.

Now Jean was sitting across the luncheon table from him, and it was obvious that she had found the rose at the grave. He was sure she was hoping that Laura had noticed who in their group might have been carrying the flower or had slipped away during the cemetery tour. He wasn't worried. Laura hadn't noticed anything. He'd stake his own life on that. She'd been too busy trying to figure out which of us she had the best chance of using. She's broke and desperate, he thought triumphantly.

The accident of learning about Lily all those years ago had made him realize all the many ways in which it was possible to have power over other people. Sometimes it amused him to use that power. Other times, he just waited. His anonymous tip to the IRS three years ago had caused the audit of Laura's finances. Now she had a lien on her house. Soon it wouldn't matter anymore, but he had the satisfaction of knowing that even before he killed her, she had been worried about losing her home.

The idea of contacting Jean about Lily had only surfaced when he happened to meet the adoptive parents of her daughter. Even though I was ambivalent about killing Jean, I wanted to make her suffer, he thought, without regret.

Leaving the flower on the headstone had been a stroke of genius. At the lunch table in Thayer, he had seen the distress in Jean's eyes. At the trooping of the colors before the football game, he made it his business to sit next to her. "It's a marvelous sight, isn't it?" he'd asked her.

"Yes, it is."

He knew she was thinking about Reed Thornton.

The Hellcats drum and signal corps was marching past the stand where they were sitting. Take a good look, Jeannie, he thought. Your kid is the one on this end in the second row.

18

After they got back to the Glen-Ridge House in Cornwall, Jean made it her business to go up in the elevator with Laura and to follow her down to her room. "Laura, honey, I need to talk to you," she said.

"Oh, Jeannie, I've just got to have a hot bath and rest," Laura protested. "Tours of West Point and going to a football game may be all very well, but I'm not one for spending hours outdoors. Can we get together later?"

"No," Jean said firmly. "I need to talk to you now."

"Only because you're such a good friend," Laura said with a sigh. She slipped the plastic key into the lock. "Welcome to the Taj Mahal." She opened the door and flipped the light switch. The lamps at the side of the bed and on the desk went on, casting uncertain light on the room already falling into shadows from the late afternoon sun.

Jean sat on the edge of the bed. "Laura, this is really important. You went to the cemetery as part of your tour, didn't you?"

Laura began to unbutton the suede jacket she had worn to West Point. "Uh-huh. Jeannie, I know you used to go up there a lot when we were at Stonecroft, but this is the first time I went through the cemetery. God, when you think of all the famous people who are buried there. General Custer. I thought they'd figured he messed up that attack he led, but now I guess, thanks to his wife, they've decided he was a hero. Standing at his grave today I thought of something you told me a long time ago, that the Indians called Custer 'Chief Yellow Hair.' You always managed to come up with things like that."

"Did everyone go on the tour to the cemetery, Laura?"

"Everyone on the bus did. Some of the people who brought their kids had their own cars, and they kind of did their own tour. I mean, I saw them wandering off by themselves. When you were a kid, did you want to look at tombstones?" Laura hung up her jacket in the closet. "Jeannie, I love you, but I have got to lie down. You should, too. Tonight's our big night. We get the medal or the plaque or whatever it is we get. You don't think they'll make us sing the school song, do you?"

Jean got up and put her hands on Laura's shoulders. "Laura, this is important. Did you notice if anyone on the bus was carrying a rose, or did you see anyone take out a rose in the cemetery?"

"A rose? No, of course not. I mean I saw some other people putting flowers on some of the graves, but no one from our crowd. Who in our group knew someone who's buried there well enough to bring flowers?"

I should have known, Jean thought. Laura wasn't paying attention to anyone who wasn't important to her. "I'll get out of your way," she promised. "What time are we due downstairs?"

"Seven o'clock cocktails, dinner at eight. We get our medals at ten o'clock. Then tomorrow it's just the memorial service for Alison and the brunch at Stonecroft."

"Are you going right back to California, Laura?"

Impulsively, Laura hugged Jean. "My plans are not yet definite, but let's say I may have a better option. See you later, honey."

When the door closed behind Jean, Laura pulled her garment bag out of the closet. As soon as the dinner was over, they would slip away. As he had said, "I've had enough of the hotel, Laura. Have an overnight bag ready, and I'll put it in my car before dinner. But keep your mouth shut. It's nobody's business where we stay tonight. We'll make up for you not realizing how great I was twenty years ago."

As she packed a cashmere jacket to wear in the morning, Laura smiled to herself. I did tell him that I definitely want to go to Alison's memorial, but I didn't care if we skipped brunch.

Then she frowned. He'd replied, "I wouldn't dream of missing Alison's memorial," but of course he meant we'd be there together.

19

At three o'clock in the afternoon, Sam Deegan was surprised to receive a phone call from Alice Sommers. "Sam, are you by any chance free this evening to go to a black-tie dinner?" she asked.

Sam hesitated out of pure astonishment.

"I realize this is absolutely no notice," Alice said apologetically.

"No, not at all. The answer is that, yes, I'm free, and I do have a tuxedo hanging in my closet, cleaned and pressed."

"There's a gala tonight honoring some of the graduates of the twentieth reunion class at Stonecroft. People in town were asked to buy seats for the dinner. The whole thing is really a fund-raiser for the new addition they want to put on Stonecroft. I wasn't planning to go, but there's someone being honored I want you to meet. Her name is Jean Sheridan. She used to live next door to me, and I'm very fond of her. She has a serious problem and needs some advice, and my original plan was to ask you to stop by tomorrow to talk to her about it. Then I decided it would be lovely to be there when Jean receives her medal, and…"