Before I Say Good-Bye (18 page)

thirty-eight

O
N
F
RIDAY AFTERNOON,
in Philadelphia, Ben Tucker was taken to the office of clinical child psychologist Dr. Megan Crowley.

He sat alone in the reception room while his mother went into another room to talk to the doctor. He knew that he was going to have to talk to her too, and he didn’t want to, because she was sure to ask him about the dream. It was not something he wanted to talk about.

He had it every single night now, and sometimes even during the day he was sure he would turn a corner and the snake would be there and jump straight at him.

Mom and Dad tried to tell him that what he was seeing wasn’t real, and that he was upset. They said that it was very hard for a little kid to see a terrible explosion where people died. They said that the doctor would help him to get over it.

But they didn’t get it—it wasn’t the explosion. It was the
snake.

Dad said when Ben thought about that day in New York, he should think about the visit to the Statue of Liberty. He should think about how much fun they had climbing all those steps, and about the view from the statue’s crown.

Ben had tried to do all that. He’d even made himself think about Dad’s boring story of how his great-great-grandfather was one of the kids who collected pennies so that the Statue of Liberty could be put up in the first place. He thought about all the people who had come from other countries, had sailed by the statue and looked up at it, excited to be coming to the United States. He thought about all those things, but they didn’t help—he just couldn’t stop thinking about the snake.

The door opened and his mother came out with another lady.

“Hi, Ben,” she said, “I’m Dr. Megan.”

She was young, not like Dr. Peterson, his pediatrician, who was real old.

“Dr. Megan would like to talk with you now, Benjy,” his mother said.

“Will you come with me?” he asked, starting to be afraid.

“No, I’ll wait right here. But don’t worry. You’ll be fine. And you’ll be back here with me in no time, and we’ll go get a treat.”

He looked at the doctor. He knew he was going to have to go with her. But I’m not going to talk about the snake, he promised himself.

Dr. Megan surprised him, though. She didn’t seem to want to talk about the snake. She asked him about
school, and he told her he was in the third grade. And then she asked about sports, and he told her he liked wrestling best, and he told her how the other day he won his match because he pinned the other kid in thirty seconds. Then they talked about music class, and he said he knew he didn’t practice enough, and he told her that he hit a real clinker when he was playing the recorder today.

They talked about a lot of things, but she never once asked him about the snake. She just said that she would see him again on Monday.

“Dr. Megan’s nice,” he told his mother when they were going down in the elevator. “Can we go for ice cream now?”

Saturday and Sunday
June 17 and 18

thirty-nine

N
ELL HAD SPENT
all Friday evening reading the books about psychic phenomena she had purchased that afternoon after her run in the park.

By Saturday afternoon she had gotten through all the sections of each book that dealt with the aspects of the phenomena she wanted to explore. What do I believe about all this? she kept asking herself as she read, and then reread, many of the passages.

I knew the exact moment when Gram and Mom and Dad died, she thought, and I know that when I was in Hawaii, Mom and Dad made me keep swimming when I wanted to give up—these are my own personal experiences with psychic phenomena.

Nell noted that in some of the books the author wrote about a person’s “aura.” That last day, she thought, the day of the explosion, when I saw Winifred, there seemed to be a kind of blackness around her. According to what I’ve read here, I was seeing her aura. That blackness, according to these books, is a symbol of death.

Nell thought about the time she had seen Bonnie Wilson on television. She was positively startling in the
way she talked to that woman about the circumstances of her husband’s death, she remembered.

The skeptics say that these people who claim to have psychic powers are just making lucky guesses, based on information they have been clever enough to trick the subject into revealing. Well, I admit to being a skeptic, Nell thought, but I confess that if Bonnie Wilson is a trickster, then she’s fooled me too.

Do the people who claim to be in touch with the dead really just make lucky guesses? she wondered. Bonnie Wilson could
not
have guessed everything she told that woman that day Nell had watched her on television. But what about synchronicity? Nell wondered. That’s what they call it when you’re thinking of someone and a minute later that person calls you. It’s as though one person is sending a fax, and the other is receiving it. They’re in synch.

That would go a long way toward explaining the phenomenon she had seen when watching Bonnie Wilson. Maybe the psychics who claim to be in touch with the dead are actually fax machines for the thoughts of the people who consult them, she decided.

Oh, Adam, why did I tell you not to come home that day? Nell agonized. If only I hadn’t done that, would I be able to accept that you’re gone?

But even if we had never had that misunderstanding, your death would have left so many questions unanswered. Who did this to you, Adam? And why?

I thought poor Winifred had a crush on you, but now I know that there was someone else in her life. I’m glad I learned that, and I hope that she knew what it was to be loved.

Mac is so worried that your name is going to be dragged into the bribery and bid-rigging inquiry that is going on at Walters and Arsdale. Even though these things may have been going on while you were there, is it fair that they blame everything on you now, when you’re not here to defend yourself?

You worked for Walters and Arsdale for over two years, yet neither one of the principal partners came to your memorial Mass. I know they were furious with you because you bought the Kaplan property and then left them to open your own firm. But wasn’t that just ambition on your part? I was raised to believe that ambition was good, Nell thought.

Was the person who blew up your boat someone who wanted you out of the way? Were
you
the target? Or was it Sam Krause? Or maybe Winifred? Jimmy Ryan’s widow started to talk to me after the Mass, but then something made her run away. Was she about to tell me something I should know about the meeting on the boat? Could Jimmy Ryan have been the one who knew something dangerous to someone else? Could he have been the target?

That last morning, Adam had said there were different degrees of honesty in the construction business. What had he meant by that? Nell wondered.

For most of Saturday night Nell lay sleepless. I feel as though at any moment Adam might come in, she thought. Finally she dozed off, but she awoke again at six. It was going to be another beautiful June morning. She showered and dressed and went to the seven o’clock Mass.

“May Adam’s soul and the souls of the faithful departed rest in peace . . .” Her prayer was the same as
the week before. And it would be the same for many Sundays to come. She had to find some answers, some explanation to all that had happened.

But if Adam is trying to get in touch with me, Nell thought, there must be some reason why he can’t find rest.

She thought of the teachings of the Church. The Curé of Ars, who is the patron saint of priests, was said to have a remarkable understanding of the afterlife. Padre Pio was a mystic.

I don’t know what to believe, Nell thought.

On the way home from Mass, she stopped to buy a bagel. It was still hot from the oven. I love New York on Sunday morning, she thought as she walked down Lexington Avenue. On mornings such as this, it’s like a small town just waking up. The streets are empty and quiet.

This part of Manhattan had been Mac’s electoral district, his streets. Will it be
my
district,
my
streets? she wondered with a quickened heartbeat.

Without Adam there would be no more agonizing about running for office.

She hated the realization that, for a brief instant, she felt a flicker of relief, knowing that at least that problem no longer existed.

forty

P
ETER
L
ANG
spent the weekend alone in Southampton, having turned down the half-dozen invitations he’d had from friends to join them for golf or cocktails or dinner. All his energy and thoughts were concentrated on the
situation he faced in financing his projected new Vandermeer project, and his now compelling need to have Nell MacDermott sell to him the parcel of land her husband had bought from the Kaplan woman.

I never considered that there was even a prayer of getting the Board of Estimate to overturn the designation of the Vandermeer mansion as a landmark, he thought, berating himself for such a careless miscalculation. Then, when it was in the air that that was going to happen, it was too late—Cauliff had beaten him to Ada Kaplan.

Without the Kaplan parcel, the complex they could erect would be serviceable, but nothing special. With it, however, he could finally be the force behind the creation of a masterpiece of architecture, a grand addition to the Manhattan skyline.

He had never put the Lang name on one of his buildings. He had waited, knowing that eventually he would find the perfect combination of location and design worthy of carrying his family’s name. The result would be a building that would stand as a monument to three generations of Langs.

As he had feared, when he approached Adam Cauliff with an offer to buy the Kaplan property from him, Cauliff had told him in so many words that he would see him in hell before he sold that parcel to him, thus the forced partnership.

Well, it looks like Adam will be showing up in hell before me, Peter thought with grim satisfaction.

And now he had to figure out the best way to deal with Cauliff’s widow and to convince her to sell him that property. He had learned enough about her to know that at least for the immediate future she could
not be induced to sell the parcel out of need—she seemed to be financially well off on her own, independent of her late husband. He had one card up his sleeve, however, one trump he could play that was almost guaranteed to carry the day.

It was an open secret that Cornelius MacDermott had been intensely disappointed that his granddaughter hadn’t run for his congressional seat when he retired two years ago.

She has the credentials, Peter Lang mused as, late Sunday afternoon, he walked down the flower-bordered path that led from his house to the ocean. Too bad she didn’t run last time, he thought. Gorman was a waste, and if he does quit, she’s going to have to work to get back voters who were dissatisfied by his performance.

Nell MacDermott is a chip off the old block, though, and like her grandfather, she’s politically very savvy. She’s also smart enough to know that I can do a lot to help her get elected, and that it would be wise to get me on her side. Not only can I help her, I suspect that when the courts start looking into some of the practices Adam was involved in, she’ll be begging me to come to her aid as a defender of her husband’s character.

Peter Lang dropped the towel he was carrying, and with long, decisive strides raced through the breaking surf and threw himself into the Atlantic.

The water was numbingly cold, but once he had gone a few yards his body began to adjust. As he swam with swift, expert strokes, Lang thought about his missed date with destiny, and wondered if Adam Cauliff had still been alive and aware of what was happening when the water closed over him after the boat exploded.

forty-one

B
ONNIE
W
ILSON
had told Gert to call her at any time if Nell MacDermott decided that she wanted a consultation. She fully understood that even if Nell were anxious to see her, she still might hesitate. As a popular newspaper columnist, with high public visibility, to be known to be consulting a psychic might bring her more publicity than she wanted. And there was also talk of her possibly running for Congress—the press was always looking for ways to discredit a candidate, so any hint of a visit with a noted psychic such as Bonnie might well be used against her.

The media had scoffed at the report that Hillary Clinton had used a medium in an effort to contact Eleanor Roosevelt, and Nancy Reagan had been endlessly criticized for consulting an astrologer.

But then on Sunday evening, at ten o’clock, Bonnie received the call from Gert MacDermott that she had hoped for. “Nell would like to meet you,” Gert said, her voice subdued.

“Something’s wrong, Gert. I don’t have to be a psychic to hear the stress in your voice.”

“Oh, I’m afraid my brother is terribly upset with me. He took Nell and me to dinner tonight, and I let slip that you and I talked, and I even said a little about what you had told me. Then he got all riled up and made the mistake of forbidding Nell to see you.”