The Lost Years

36

As soon as Willy, Alvirah, and Father Aiden were in the car on the way home from dinner, Alvirah played back the message Lillian had left on Richard’s cell phone. The shock and disbelief she had felt on hearing it was also the reaction of the two men. There was no question in the mind of any of them that when Lillian said she had decided to accept Richard’s offer, she was referring to the Vatican letter.

“It sounds to me as if she’s had other offers,” Willy observed, “if Richard is willing to pay two million dollars for it.”

“My guess is that any offers would have to be anywhere from one million on up,” Alvirah said. “I wouldn’t have thought Richard had that kind of money. Being a college professor isn’t exactly like being on Wall Street.”

“He was brought up on Park Avenue,” Father Aiden said. “I know that his grandfather was a very successful businessman. My question is, what would Richard do with the parchment?”

“My guess is that he might want to see it returned to the Vatican Library,” Alvirah said hopefully.

“That would be a noble thing, but the fact is Richard has denied ever having seen the parchment. Now we know he is not only aware that Lillian has it, but he has actually been trying to buy it,” Father Aiden pointed out. “So that means Richard’s motives are suspect. I’m sure he knows collectors who would pay a fortune to get their hands on that parchment just for the thrill of owning it.”

Alvirah sadly admitted to herself that what Father O’Brien had said made plenty of sense. “Those two detectives made appointments to meet with Richard and Charles and Albert and Greg tomorrow,” she said. “That will keep them pretty busy. I wouldn’t like to have them cross-examining me if I had anything to hide.”

“They don’t cross-examine anyone,” Willy pointed out. “That only happens in a trial. But I guess they will try to pin them down.” Then he added, “How about that missing caregiver? Alvirah, did we ever meet her?”

“Rory? I think once last year, but she was on her way upstairs with Kathleen. I didn’t get much of an impression of her.”

“She was at Kathleen’s side in the funeral parlor and throughout the day of the funeral,” Father Aiden said. “She was certainly very attentive to her.”

“Maybe she forgot she had that dinner and took off,” Willy suggested. “Mariah told the cops she was paying her for the week, but that it would be Friday at the earliest before Kathleen could be released to go home. Rory wouldn’t be the first one to forget a dinner date. Maybe she just decided to go away for a couple of days. My bet is that she’ll show up by Friday.”

“I don’t think it’s all that simple,” Alvirah said. “Even if she went away, why isn’t she answering her cell phone?”

They were all silent for the next fifteen minutes until they reached the E-ZPass toll plaza at the George Washington Bridge leading into Manhattan. Then Willy asked, “Honey, do you think it might have been better if you had played your recording of that message for those detectives right on the spot?”

“I thought about it, but I decided it was too soon,” she replied. “Richard could say the offer she was talking about was to buy Lillian’s car, and they had joked about the amount. I have to pay another visit to Miss Lillian tomorrow morning. I’ll take her by surprise and play the tape for her. You heard the way she sounds on it. She’s nervous and frightened, and when someone is in that condition, she needs a good friend to help her see things clearly. I’ll be that good friend.”

Albert West and Charles Michaelson had quarreled on their way to the dinner. Albert’s point-blank statement that he thought that Charles had seen the parchment and might even have it in his possession had evoked a scathing response from Charles.

“Just because you helped me out when I had that problem doesn’t give you the right to accuse me of lying about the parchment,” Charles had said, his anger blazing. “As I’ve said over and over again, Jonathan told me he was going to show me the parchment, but then he got killed. I have no idea where it is. My guess is he would have given it to Lillian for safekeeping so his nut-job wife wouldn’t get her hands on it and tear it up. Do I need to remind you what she did to those pictures? And, Albert, while we’re on the subject, what about you? How do I know that you don’t know a lot more about what’s happened? You’ve made some pretty good money over the years selling antiquities. You certainly would know how to connect to a buyer in the underground market.”

“As you well know, Charles, I worked for interior designers buying antiques that had been offered for sale in the legitimate market,” Albert had snapped. “I have never gotten involved with buying or selling or trading biblical documents.”

“There’s always a first time when big money is at stake,” Charles retorted. “You’ve lived on a professor’s salary. You’re about to retire on a professor’s pension. You won’t be able to do much globe-trotting on that income.”

“The same applies to you, Charles, but, unlike you, I’ve never made a nickel defrauding a collector.”

That conversation had ended when they reached Mariah’s home.

On the way back to Manhattan, the tension escalated. Each had now been asked to appear at the prosecutor’s office tomorrow to give a statement to the detectives.

Both were aware that the detectives would inevitably check their cell phone records. Notwithstanding Kathleen’s arrest, it was clear that the detectives were probing further into the circumstances surrounding Jonathan’s death, the missing parchment, and now the missing caregiver.

Greg’s apartment at the Time Warner Center overlooked Central Park South. When he arrived home after the dinner, he stood for a long time at the window watching the panorama of late-night strollers on the sidewalks rimming the park. By nature he was intensely analytical and he once again reviewed the events of the evening in his mind.

Was it too much to hope that Mariah was beginning to really care about him? He had sensed that, for just a moment, she had responded to his ardent embrace but then pulled back. The secret of winning her was to get her mother out of this mess, he thought. Even if the prosecutor had enough evidence to prove that Kathleen had killed Jonathan, if she was also found to be insane, then the judge just might let her come home as long as she had round-the-clock security. I can help Mariah get the right psychiatrists and I can also afford to provide the security for her mother, he thought.

How much money could Mariah possibly have at this point? he asked himself. Jonathan is dead. His pension can’t be that much. He’s been paying caregivers for a long time so he was probably getting pretty well drained. Mariah won’t want to sell the house. She wants her mother to keep living in it. If her mother ends up back there, the security will cost a fortune. Even before any trial, if her mother is released on Friday, the judge is going to insist that the security start right now.

Those detectives seem to think that Rory’s disappearance may have something to do with Jonathan’s death. Do they think that Rory took off because she was somehow involved? Or do they think that somebody got rid of her because she knew too much about something?

Greg shrugged, walked into his den, and opened his laptop. It wasn’t too soon to start looking up the leading court psychiatrists, he decided.

Richard drove back to his apartment near Fordham University, exultant that Lillian had decided to accept his offer. I’ll keep my side of the bargain, he thought. I will never say that I got it from Lillian. She’s told me that she has two other offers, but I believe her when she says she never actually admitted to anyone that she had it. Richard smiled as he pulled into his garage. She sure fell for the story I gave her, he thought.

She shouldn’t be so gullible.