The Melody Lingers On (28 page)

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.

S
ylvie 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.”

Sylvie smiled, “Oh, I would say so. For me, it was very pleasant.”

A
fter the meeting at Rudy Schell’s office Lane and Glady were frosty to each other for two days. Then Glady said, “Lane, I’m
going to do something I hate to do, and that is to apologize. We don’t have to discuss what we don’t agree about, but I promise I will not make a negative remark in your presence about
Eric Bennett. Is it a deal?”

“Yes, Glady, thank you.”

But even though she had made peace with Glady, Lane was not at peace with herself. She realized how confused she was about Eric. It’s not so much about his guilt or innocence, she admitted
to herself. I
know
he’s innocent. It’s about my feelings toward him.

As she had expected, Eric was no longer satisfied with seeing her once a week. “Lane, we can go out to dinner in the city after Katie’s asleep,” he pointed out.
“Wouldn’t your babysitter be happy to make a few extra dollars? She lives right in your building, doesn’t she? If we had dinner at nine o’clock, you’d be home by
eleven o’clock.”

He’d asked to see Katie again. “I’d like to spend a Saturday or Sunday with the
two
of you,” he said. “The Christmas show at Radio City is opening. You
tell me that Katie is a good skater. Have you ever taken her to the rink in Rockefeller Plaza?”

In one of their conversations she had told him that when she was a child, she used to go skating with her father. “My dad was a natural and so is Katie.”

Eric told her that his mother would like her to visit. “Maybe on Saturday, instead of meeting me at the restaurant, you could come a little earlier and spend some time with her?”

Eric was persuasive and charming. He was starting to bring her little gifts—not too expensive, but thoughtful, caring, well chosen.

The last one was a Montblanc pen with her initials engraved on it. When he gave it to her he said, “I can’t believe that I saw you take out that cheap throwaway when you rummaged in
your purse for your cell phone.”

“I had a good one, but I lost it somewhere and never got around to replacing it,” she told him. “That’s so sweet of you to notice.”

But the question that persistently hammered at her was, why did Dwight hate him so much? She knew her feelings about Dwight had changed during Thanksgiving weekend, but why did Dwight hate him
so much?

There had been another item, this time in Cindy Adams’s column in the
Post
, about Eric and her enjoying a tête-à-tête at Primola on Second Avenue in
Manhattan.

But at least the Fifth Avenue apartment of Countess Sylvie de la Marco was almost complete now except for a few throw pillows, some semivaluable bric-a-brac, deliveries of end tables, and new
bedspreads in the guest bedrooms. Glady had told her this morning that the two million from the countess finally arrived.

Though Glady and she never talked about it, Lane was uncomfortable to know that there were listening devices in de la Marco’s home.

She had come to like the countess. It was amusing to watch the way she went from the veneer of nobility to her roots in a lower-middle-class family.

When Glady was around the countess stayed in the library, but when Lane was there alone she often stopped in to chat with her. When she commented on some of the artwork Glady had ordered, she
said, “Lane, if this stuff is going to be worth ten times what I paid for it, the world is going nuts. It looks like finger painting to me.”

Lane thought it better to not tell the countess that she agreed with her.

That evening she met Eric for one of their Tuesday night dinners in Manhattan. He said, “Lane, my mother’s birthday is Thursday. She refuses to go out for dinner, but she would love
it if you would come see her again. We’ll toast her over a glass of wine, then go out to dinner ourselves.”

Lane had visited Anne the last two Saturdays. She truly liked her, but Anne too had been pressing her to bring Katie out for a visit. Tuesday and Saturday for dinner and now Thursday? It’s
too much, she thought. It’s way too much.

But because it was Anne’s birthday, she reluctantly agreed. When she accepted the offer, she knew there was something she had to do. She was going to call Dwight and plead with him to tell
her why he despised Eric Bennett.

O
n Wednesday afternoon, carrying his bags, Parker Bennett left the Day and Night Motel for the last time.