The Heritage Paper (19 page)

A guard opened a heavy, air-pressured door. Ms. Flores walked them in and Veronica almost choked on the heavy scent of perfume.

The sight before her was odd. Rose Shepherd was sitting on a couch with a blanket over her legs, reading the latest Nora Roberts
romance novel. And she looked like she’d dressed for the occasion. Or maybe she was dressed for the Governor’s Ball. She wore a blue, silk dress. Her face was heavily made up, her lipstick was bright red, and her hair was dyed a yellowish blonde and styled in a way that reminded Veronica of a Flapper-cut from the Roaring Twenties. About as far away from an orange jumpsuit as you could get.

She also wore a heavy necklace that hung below the neckline of the dress. Veronica found an object around her neck sadly ironic, since the thing that connected them was the fact that Rose had strangled Greta Peterson to death. She also found it lax in regards to Rose’s personal safety, since it was well known that she had made numerous suicide attempts during her stay at Bedford.

Ms. Flores told them not to be flattered, as the stylish prisoner dressed to the nines every day, despite rarely seeing a visitor. She then left them alone with a warning that the guard was right outside the door. Veronica wasn’t sure if the warning was for them or Rose.

Veronica studied the woman who she never met, yet had altered her husband’s life more than she ever did. And despite all the pain that Rose had caused Carsten, he came to visit her on his last day of life.

Rose didn’t acknowledge their presence, as her nose remained glued to the book she unsteadily held. Veronica noticed magazines scattered across the floor. All of them were of the celebrity gossip type. The catchy theme of
Entertainment Tonight
played in the background at earsplitting volume.

Veronica approached the prisoner and introduced herself, trying to match the loudness of the television. Rose looked up at them in a childlike way. They didn’t register to her, but she looked happy to see them nonetheless, and announced, “Welcome to the Grand Hotel!”

This should be good,
Veronica thought. She was admittedly no Mike Wallace and opened the questioning with, “I love your dress.”

Rose smiled. Her teeth were whiter than Veronica expected. “It’s my wedding dress.”

Veronica had researched Rose Shepherd backward and forward, so she knew she had never been married. But then again, in her mind, she might have been.

Veronica’s eyes swept the room once more. The choice to come here seemed right at the time, but now she wasn’t so sure. The room was full of entertainment—TV, movies, books. So she tried to play off that. “You look like a movie star.”

The comment seemed to awaken Rose. “Ever since a little girl I wanted to be an actress. I always wanted to see my name up in lights like Jean Harlow,” she replied enthusiastically. Zach clicked off the television so they could better hear. She didn’t seem to notice.

The answer matched Veronica’s research. According to a 1976
TIME
Magazine
article in which Rose gave her only interview about Greta’s murder, she mentioned that the Shepherds came to New York following World War I. As a young woman, Rose caught the acting bug, and while she never became the next Jean Harlow, she did earn a small role in a 1949 off-Broadway play.

In the 1950s she moved behind the camera—another one of her passions—and opened her own photography shop on the Upper West Side. Her big break came when she was chosen as the photographer for the wedding of Aligor Sterling’s son. Aligor was so impressed with her work that he hired her for all photography work for Sterling Publishing. By most accounts, she spent the next decades living out the successful life of a professional single woman in New York. There was nothing in her past that would foreshadow a violent future. That’s what made what happened next so perplexing.

She was arrested in May of 1975 for blackmail and extortion. It wasn’t a crime that made headlines like the
Mrs. Cleaver
stabbing had, months earlier. Rose Shepherd claimed to have come across information of a sensitive nature that she felt could hurt Sterling Publishing, and tried to extort money from Aligor Sterling in exchange for her silence. He alerted the authorities and cooperated in a sting operation. When she tried to blackmail him on tape, she was arrested.

The content of the “sensitive” photos was anybody’s guess because the court sealed them. But no action was taken against Sterling, so Veronica figured they might have been embarrassing, but weren’t illegal. The bigger question was what would cause a sixty-something woman to suddenly turn on her biggest client and blackmail him? It seemed like she was biting the hand that fed her. But then things took an even more bizarre turn. While in prison awaiting her trial, she strangled her cellmate.

Likely feeling guilty over their mother’s murder, Aligor Sterling offered the Peterson children lifetime jobs at his company. Carsten took advantage of this opportunity and moved quickly up the ranks. But Eddie had always dreamed of following the family tradition of working in law enforcement, and never took him up on it. Veronica wondered if the security job for Kingston had some connection to that original offer.

Rose’s eyes returned to the television. Zach turned it back on just in time for the anchorwoman to deliver a story about a one time A-list actress who had fallen on hard times and reportedly attempted suicide.

“I feel so sad for her,” Rose surprisingly blurted out. “She was forced to go through life under the glare of the spotlight, I know exactly how it feels. I once tried to kill myself because a boy broke my heart. I just wanted to make the pain stop.”

Rose pointed out the scars on her wrist to confirm her suicide attempt. The scars were faded with time, but it was obvious that her unstable behavior began long before she shared that cell with Greta Peterson.

“I want to ask you about a day last year when a man named Carsten Peterson came to see you,” Veronica said.

Her eyes glazed over as she stared at the television screen. Veronica asked again, louder this time, like she was talking to one of her children.

Rose looked up with a baffled look. “I don’t know—who is he?”

“You killed his mother,” Veronica said directly.

Rose remained entrenched in her own little world, showing no outward emotion. “It’s so sad when a child has to grow up without a mother.”

Veronica was losing her cool, but luckily the unflappable Zach stepped in, “Rose—I’m trying to figure out how a woman in her sixties with a no criminal record, wakes up one morning and decides to blackmail one of the world’s most powerful men … who also happens to be her meal ticket. My guess is that it was about more than the money. Maybe you should think about cleansing your soul before it’s too late.”

Her eyes un-glazed, and she was suddenly in the moment. “I didn’t blackmail anybody.”

“A court of law didn’t agree with you.”

“That’s not true, the blackmail charges were dropped. The only thing I was convicted of was murder,” she said, surprisingly coherent.

“Only? Let me guess, you didn’t do that either.”

“They had Jew lawyers to say I did. They were very powerful men.”

“So you’re saying that Sterling conspired to frame you for murder. Why would he do that?” Zach pushed on, needing to take advantage before she drifted back into la-la land.

She clammed up, looking nervous. The woman was ninety-nine, serving a life sentence without parole, what did she have to lose? “
Shh
—the Jews can get you anywhere,” she whispered.

Veronica found it peculiar that a man who ran an organization dedicated to Jewish causes would hire someone with such views, no matter how talented a photographer she was.

Zach pleaded with her, “Please, Rose, it’s very important.”

“I found out things about him,” she said quietly like she was worried Big Brother was listening. Everyone inched closer. “I came across things.”

“What things were those?”

“A good girl never kisses and tells.”

Veronica was pretty sure that she was implying that she’d had an affair with Sterling. As Maggie might say—
super gross!

“I was the only non-Jew associated with Sterling Publishing. Do you think he really hired me because my photographs were so special?”

Veronica was curious what Mr. Conspiracy Theory, Ben Youkelstein, thought about this, as he’d been mysteriously quiet during the interview process. She wondered if they might have crossed paths at some point, both working for Sterling.

But his only question for her was, “You said you tried to kill yourself over a boyfriend when you were younger. What was his name?”

She flickered a reminiscing smile. “Henry Wolf. He died in World War II, and I could never marry another man … including Aligor.”

Veronica had no idea what Ben was getting at, but it appeared that it would be the final question. Before they could dig deeper into Carsten’s final visit, Rose Shepherd drifted off to sleep.

The interview was over.

Lieutenant Edward Peterson passed through the heavy security outside Jim Kingston’s property. He drove through the gates, passing formal gardens that could have moonlighted as a state park, as he pulled his police cruiser to a stop in front of the mansion. It combined Tudor and Elizabethan revival styles and overlooked the Long Island Sound from its perch in Kings Point. “A man of the people,” Eddie said to himself with a laugh.

He was greeted by Kingston’s security detail. Since Bobby Kennedy’s assassination in 1968, presidential candidates had the right to file for protection with the Federal Election Commission. But Kingston pointed out that it would cost the taxpayer about 50k a day to protect him, so funding his own security scored him some points with the voters.

Eddie was escorted through the grand doorway, into a low-beamed entrance room that contained a fireplace so big you’d have to chop down half a forest to get a good fire going. There, he was greeted by Aligor Sterling, who was flanked by a balding man with a whiny voice that Eddie recognized from TV as Kingston’s campaign manager. A bunch of Sterling’s ass-kissing assistants were also on the welcome committee.

Sterling immediately took control of the room. He might not have been officially in charge of the campaign, but everyone knew he had the most clout. He ordered the group to follow him, and they obliged.

Eddie trailed the group into the two-story Great Room. It was a “stop you in your tracks” room with a grand staircase leading up to a carved balcony. Enormous bay windows provided a magnificent view of the Sound and the beautiful cliffs of the north shore of Long Island.

Sterling wheeled to the window and gazed out. Eddie followed him. It seemed implied that he was supposed to, but he wasn’t sure. After this morning’s events, he was unclear if he remained in good standing.

“It’s a beautiful view isn’t it, Lieutenant Peterson,” Sterling said. His tone differed from the cheery salutations at Jamie’s school.

“Breathtaking,” Eddie replied.

“You can see my estate from here,” Sterling said, pointing at an enormous manor across the water on the hamlet of Sands Point.

“It’s nice and all, but I’m not sure it compares to my rent-controlled one bedroom in the Bronx. Best fire-escape in the neighborhood,” Eddie tried to joke.

Nobody laughed.

“Did you know that Sands Point was the inspiration for the fictional East Egg in the
Great Gatsby
, while Kings Point inspired West Egg. Did you read
Gatsby
, Lieutenant Peterson?”

“My rule is if it don’t have a centerfold then I don’t read it. Although, I once convinced Kristi Wallace that I read Shakespeare so I could get in her pants back in high school.”

Sterling ignored him. “Jay Gatsby looked out from West Egg at a light at the end of a dock on East Egg. To him, it represented hope. It represented dreams.”

“Sounds like a real page turner.”

“You see, we are now very close to reaching that light. Tomorrow Jim Kingston will complete the journey to that dock, and will arrive carrying all of our dreams. Do you understand?

Eddie nodded. The message was clear—nothing would stop their dream.

Having made his point, Sterling was on the move again. They passed through a formal dining room and into the library. It featured a large mural of mythological sea creatures on one side. The other side of the room was lined with bookcases. A floor-to-ceiling window provided a view of the expansive front lawn. Eddie focused on the leaves swirling in the wind, which was how his stomach felt at the moment.

Jim Kingston sat behind a large mahogany desk, his ear locked to a landline phone.

The room was filled with his top aides, along with the mayor of New York and the NYPD police commissioner. Eddie was met with a cool reception from all.

Kingston hung up, apologizing for the delay, mentioning that he was talking to his running mate, Senator Langor from Florida. He rose to his feet and approached Eddie. He greeted him with a handshake and pat on the back.