Nighttime Is My Time: A Novel (24 page)

Jack Emerson, Jean thought as she replaced the receiver and sank down on the bed. Could he be the one who's doing this to me? He's always lived in this town. If the people who adopted Lily live here, too, he may know them.

She heard a sound and turned in time to see a manila envelope being slid under the door. She hurried across the room and yanked the door open.

An apologetic bellman was trying to straighten up. "Dr. Sheridan, a fax came for you right after a whole stack came for one of the other guests. Your fax got put in with his material. He just came across it and brought it down to the desk."

"It's all right," Jean said softly, fear almost closing her throat. She closed the door and picked up the envelope. Her hand shaking, she ripped it open. It's going to be about Lily, she thought.

It
was
about Lily. The fax read:

Jean, I am so terribly ashamed. I always knew about Lily, and I know the people who adopted her. She's a wonderful girl. She's smart; a college sophomore and very happy. I didn't mean to make you think I was threatening her. I need money desperately and thought I could get it this way. Don't worry about Lily, please. She is fine. I will be in touch with you soon. Forgive me and please let people know that I'm all right. The publicity stunt was Robby Brent's idea. He's going to try to straighten it out. He wants to talk to his producers before he has to make a statement to the press.

Laura

Her knees weak, Jean sank onto the bed. Then, crying with relief and joy, she dialed Sam's cell phone.

***

Jean's call jolted Sam from the peaceful nap he had been enjoying while Alice Sommers busied herself in the kitchen. "Another fax, Jean? Take it easy. Read it to me." He listened. "My God," he said. "I can't believe that woman would do this to you."

"You're talking to Jean? Is she all right?" Alice was standing in the doorway.

"Yes. Laura Wilcox has been sending the faxes about Lily. She's apologized, saying she never intended to hurt Lily."

Alice took the phone from him. "Jean, are you too upset to drive?" She listened. "Then come over here…"

When Jean arrived, Alice looked into Jean's face and saw the luminous joy she would have experienced herself if somehow years ago Karen had been spared. She put her arms around her, "Oh, Jean, I've been praying and praying."

Jean hugged her fiercely. "I know you have. I cannot believe that Laura has done this to me, but I am sure that Laura would never hurt Lily. And so it
was
all about money, Sam. My God, if Laura was that desperate, why didn't she just ask me straight out to help her? Half an hour ago I was ready to tell you that I thought Jack Emerson must be the one who knew about Lily."

"Jean, come in, sit down, and calm down. Have a glass of sherry and tell me what you mean by that. What does Jack Emerson have to do with this?"

"I just learned something that made me believe he was behind it." Obediently, Jean slipped off her coat, went into the den, sat on the chair nearest the fire, and, trying to keep her voice steady, told them about the call from Peggy Kimball. "Jack worked in that office at the time I was Dr. Connors' patient. He planned this reunion to get us all here. In his den he has that picture of Laura that Robby Brent talked about. It all seemed to fit—until the fax was delivered. Oh, I didn't tell you. The fax came in around noon but got mixed in with someone else's stuff."

"You should have received it at
noon
?" Sam asked quickly.

"Yes, and if I had, I wouldn't have gone to see Craig Michaelson.

As soon as I got it, I tried to phone him so that in case he was planning to contact Lily's adoptive parents, I could tell him to hold off until I heard from Laura again. There's no need now to alarm them or her."

"Have you told anyone else about this fax from Laura?" Sam asked quietly.

"No. I got it right after I went upstairs to my room. Mark and I sat and talked for at least an hour after you left us. Oh, I should call Mark now before he goes out to dinner. He'll be so glad to hear about this. He understands just as much as you two do how desperately worried I've been."

Dollars to doughnuts, Jean told Fleischman about the possibility that the hairbrush might be traced to the place where Lily lost it, or who she was with when she lost it, Sam thought grimly as he watched Jean reach for her cell phone.

He exchanged glances with Alice and saw they were sharing the same concern. Was this fax really from Laura, or was it one more bizarre twist in an ongoing nightmare?

Then there is another scenario, Sam thought. If Jean is right, and Craig Michaelson
did
handle the adoption, it's possible that Michaelson might already have contacted Lily's adoptive parents and discussed the missing brush.

Unless this communication from Laura was on the level, Lily had become a danger to whoever was sending the faxes. And whoever was doing it might have thought about the hairbrush being traced to him.

I'm not ready to accept that these faxes were from Laura, Sam thought. Not yet anyway. Jack Emerson worked in Dr. Connors' office, has always lived in town, and could easily be friends with a couple from Cornwall who might have adopted Lily.

Mark Fleischman may have won Jean's confidence, but I'm not convinced. There's something going on inside that guy that has nothing to do with going on television and giving advice to dysfunctional families, he decided.

Jean was leaving a message for Fleischman. "He's not in," she said, then sniffed and turned to Alice, a smile on her face. "Something smells wonderful. If you don't invite me to dinner, I'm going to invite myself. Oh, dear God, I'm
so
happy.
I'm so happy
!"

59

Nighttime is my time, The Owl thought as he frantically waited for darkness. He had been a fool to risk going back to the house during the daytime—he might have been seen. But then he had gotten the unsettling feeling that maybe Robby Brent was not dead after all, that, actor that he was, he had pretended to be unconscious. He could just picture him crawling out of his car and making his way to the street—or maybe even going up the stairs to find Laura and call 911.

The image of Robby alive and able to get help had become so powerful that The Owl had no choice but to go back to confirm for himself that he was indeed dead, that he was exactly where he had left him, in the trunk of his car.

It was almost like the first time he had taken a life, that night in Laura's house, The Owl thought. Through the haze of memory he recalled tiptoeing up the back stairs, heading to the room where he had expected to find Laura. That was twenty years ago.

Last night, knowing that Robby Brent was following him, it hadn't been hard to outsmart him. But then he'd had to dig in Robby's pocket for his keys so he could drive his car into the garage. His first rental car, the one with the muddy tires, was occupying one space in the garage. He'd driven Robby Brent's car into the other space and then dragged Brent's body to it from the staircase where he had killed him.

Somehow he had revealed himself to Robby Brent. Somehow Robby had figured it out. What about the others? Was a circle closing so that soon he would no longer be able to escape into the night? He didn't like uncertainty. He needed reassurance—the reassurance that came only when he carried out the deed that reaffirmed his mastery over life and death.

At eleven o'clock he began to drive through Orange County. Not too near Cornwall, he thought. Not too near Washingtonville, where Helen Whelan's body was found. Maybe Highland Falls would be a good choice. Maybe somewhere in the vicinity of the motel where Jean Sheridan had stayed with the cadet would be the place to look.

Maybe one of the sidestreets near that motel would be the place where he was destined to find his victim.

At eleven-thirty, as he cruised down a tree-lined street, he observed two women standing on a porch beneath an overhead light. As he watched, one turned, went back inside, and closed the door. The other began to go down the porch stairs. The Owl pulled over to the curb, turned off the lights of the car, and waited for her as she cut across the lawn to the sidewalk.

She was looking down, walking swiftly, and did not hear him when he got out of the car and moved to the shadow of the tree. He stepped out as she passed him. He could feel The Owl spring from its cage as his hand covered her mouth, and he swiftly slid the rope around her neck.

"I'm sorry for you," he whispered, "but you have been chosen."

60

The body of Yvonne Tepper was discovered at 6:00 a.m. by Bessie Koch, a seventy-year-old widow who supplemented her Social Security check by delivering
The New York Times
to her customers in the Highland Falls area of Orange County.

She had been about to turn her car into Tepper's driveway, one of her sales pitches being her "no bare feet" policy. "People don't have to come down the driveway to get my papers," she explained in her flyers. "The paper is there when you open your door." The campaign was a loving tribute to her now deceased husband who typically went out in his bare feet to retrieve the morning newspaper from wherever their own delivery man had thrown it, usually nearer the curb than the front steps.

At first Bessie's mind did not accept the evidence of her eyes. There had been an overnight frost, and Yvonne Tepper was lying between two bushes, on grass that still glittered with shiny patches of icy moisture. Her legs were bent, and her hands were in the pockets of her navy blue parka. Her appearance was so neat and orderly that Bessie's first impression was that she must have just fallen.

When the reality hit, Bessie stopped the car with an abrupt slam of the brakes. Flinging open the door, she raced the few feet to Tepper's body. For a few moments she stood over it, numb with shock as she took in the woman's opened eyes, her slack mouth, and the cord that was twisted around her neck.

Bessie tried to call for help but was unable to force a sound past her throat and lips. Then she turned and stumbled back to the car and into the driver's seat. She leaned on the horn. In the nearby houses, lights flashed on, and annoyed residents rushed to their windows. Several men ran outside to see the cause of the commotion— ironically, all of them barefooted.

The husband of the neighbor Yvonne Tepper had been visiting when she was waylaid by The Owl jumped into the passenger seat of Bessie's car and firmly pulled her hands off the blaring horn.

That was when Bessie was finally able to scream.

61

Sam Deegan was weary enough to sleep the sleep of the just, even though the instinct that made him a good cop was not satisfied that the latest fax Jean had received was on the level.

The alarm woke him at 6:00 a.m., and he lay in bed briefly with his eyes closed. The fax was the first conscious thought in his mind. Too glib, he thought again. Covers everything. But it's doubtful that a judge would grant a rush order to open Lily's file now, he decided.

Maybe that had been the point of the fax. Maybe someone had panicked, fearing that if a judge allowed the file to be opened and Lily had been questioned about her missing hairbrush, it might have implicated him.

It was that scenario that worried Sam. He opened his eyes, sat up, and threw back the covers. On the other hand, he thought, mentally playing devil's advocate, it does make sense that Laura somehow learned years ago that Jean was pregnant. At dinner Jean had told Alice and him that, before she disappeared, Laura had made a reference to Reed Thornton. "I'm not sure if she used his name," Jean said. "But I was surprised that she even had known I was dating a cadet."

I don't trust that fax, and I still think it's too much of a coincidence that five women died in the order that they were sitting at a lunch table, Sam thought as he plodded into the kitchen, plugged in the coffee maker, and went into the bathroom and turned on the shower.

The coffee was ready when he got back to the kitchen, dressed for the office in a jacket and slacks. He poured orange juice into a glass and dropped an English muffin into the toaster. When Kate was alive, he always had oatmeal for breakfast. Even though he had tried to convince himself that it wasn't difficult—putting a third of a cup of oatmeal in a bowl, adding a cup of low-fat milk and sticking the bowl in the microwave for two minutes—it just never came out right. Kate's was so much better. After a while he'd given up trying to make it for himself.

It had been nearly three years since Kate lost her long battle with cancer. Fortunately, the house wasn't so big that, with the boys raised and out, he felt the need to sell it. You don't get to live in a big house on an investigator's salary, Sam thought. A lot of other women might have complained about that, but not Kate. She loved this house, he thought. She had made it a home, and no matter how rough his day had been, he'd been happy and grateful to return to it at night.

It's still the same house, Sam thought as he picked up the newspaper from outside the kitchen door and settled down at the breakfast table. But it feels a lot different without Kate. Last night, dozing in Alice's den, he'd had the same kind of feeling there that he used to have about this place. Comfortable. Warm. The sound of Alice preparing dinner. The mouthwatering smell of roast beef drifting into the den.

He then remembered that, as he had been dozing off, something had caught his attention. What was it? Did it have something to do with Alice's curio cabinet? Next time he dropped in, he'd take a look. Maybe it was the demitasse cups she collected. His mother had loved them, too. He still had some of hers in the china closet.

Should he put butter on the English muffin, or eat it dry? he wondered.

Reluctantly, Sam decided not to use butter. I sure went off my diet last night, he recalled. That Yorkshire pudding Alice made was terrific. Jean enjoyed it as much as I did. She had been about ready to break under the tension of worrying about Lily. It was good to see her really relax. She's been looking as if she was carrying the weight of the world on her shoulders.

Let's hope that fax was on the level and that we hear from Laura again soon.

The phone rang just as he opened the newspaper. It was Eddie Zarro. "Sam, we just heard from the police chief in Highland Falls. A woman was found strangled on her front lawn there. The D.A. wants all of us in his office ASAP."

There was something Eddie was holding back. "What else?" Sam snapped.

"There was one of those little pewter owls in her pocket. Sam, we've got a full-blown nut case out there. I've got to warn you also that it was on the radio this morning that the Laura Wilcox disappearance is a publicity stunt she dreamed up with that comedian, Robby Brent. Rich Stevens is a very unhappy guy about all the time we've wasted over Wilcox when he has a homicidal maniac in Orange County on his hands. So do yourself a favor and don't bring up her name."