The Lost Years (31 page)

Her apartment was small. It consisted of a living room, a bedroom, and a kitchen, which barely accommodated a stove, a sink, a microwave oven, and a few cabinets. Dad helped move me in here, she thought. That was six years ago. Mom had already been diagnosed as having signs of early Alzheimer’s. She was getting repetitive and forgetful. I offered to move home and commute. Dad practically threw me out. He said I was young and had my own life to live.

Aware that the apartment felt stuffy, Mariah opened the window and welcomed the sound of the street noise. Music to my ears, she thought. I love the house, but what happens now? Even when this nightmare is over and Mom is allowed to come home permanently, she certainly couldn’t come live here. I’ll have to move back to Mahwah. But how long can I pay full-time caregivers?

She sat down on the club chair that her father used to sit in before he retired. Once every week or ten days, he would walk over from NYU and have a drink with her here at around six o’clock. Then they would go out to their favorite Italian restaurant on West 4th Street. By nine o’clock, he would be on his way home.

Or on his way to Lillian’s, an uncomfortable voice in her mind whispered.

Mariah tried to push aside her speculation on that possibility. Eighteen months ago, when she’d found out about Lillian, the intimate dinners they had both enjoyed had stopped. I told Dad I didn’t want to interfere with his precious time with Lillian…

To distract herself from the guilt she felt at that memory, she looked around the living room. The walls throughout the apartment
were a soft yellow shade that gave an illusion of space. Dad went through the swatches of paint with me, she remembered. He had a much better ability to judge the finished product than I ever did.

The painting over the couch had been his gift to her on move-in day. It was one he had bought in Egypt on an expedition and depicted the sun setting over the ruins of a pyramid there.

Everywhere I look, either here or at the house, something reminds me of him, she thought. She walked into the bedroom and picked up the picture of her parents taken about ten years ago, before the onslaught of the Alzheimer’s. Her father’s arms were locked around her mother’s waist and they were both smiling. I hope that in some way his arms are still around her and protecting her, Mariah thought. She needs his protection now, more than ever.

What will happen to Mom in court tomorrow?

She was about to call Alvirah to see if she had heard anything more when the land line on the night table beside her bed rang. It was Greg. “Mariah, where are you? I called the house and Betty said you had left before she came in and you’re not answering your cell phone. I’ve been worried about you.”

Mariah had turned off her phone because she was afraid that Richard might contact her again. She did not want to repeat her performance of the night before, when she had broken down at the sound of his voice at Lloyd’s dinner table. Now she said apologetically, “Greg, my cell phone was off. As you can imagine, I’m not thinking straight.”

“Neither am I. But I
am
worried about you. Your father’s girlfriend and your mother’s caregiver have both disappeared in the last few days. I can’t let anything happen to you.”

He hesitated, then said, “Mariah, I’m a pretty good judge of people. I know you are devastated at the thought that Richard would buy the parchment from Lillian. I don’t know whether he did or he
did not, but if anything has happened to Lillian, I doubt very much that Richard is responsible.”

“Why do you say that, Greg?” Mariah asked quietly.

“Because it’s what I believe.” Greg paused, then said slowly, “Mariah, I love you and I want your happiness above everything. At all of your father’s dinners, I sensed that there was a growing attraction between you and Richard. If it turns out that he would buy a stolen and sacred object, I frankly hope that whatever your feeling is for him, it will change.”

Mariah chose her words carefully. “If you saw a growing attraction between us, I have never been aware that it existed. And certainly, judging from that phone message, if Richard is what I think he is, I want no part of him ever.”

“That’s good news,” Greg said. “And I’m going to give you plenty of time to think of me as a guy worth spending your life with.”

“Greg,” Mariah began to protest.

“Forget I said that. But, Mariah, I am dead serious now. I’ve done some of my own investigation. Charles Michaelson is a fraud. He’s been trying to find a buyer for the parchment. I can even give you the name of the man who heard about it from his contacts. He’s Desmond Rogers, a well-known collector. Mariah, I beg you, don’t let Michaelson get
near
you. I wouldn’t be surprised if he turns out to be responsible for Lillian’s disappearance and the disappearance of your mother’s caregiver, too. And, Mariah—maybe even for your father’s death.”

L
loyd Scott was in his office on Main Street in Hackensack, a block away from the courthouse, when he received a call from Assistant Prosecutor Peter Jones.

“You’re telling me that the crook who broke into my house may have seen someone running from Jonathan’s house right after he was shot!” Lloyd exclaimed. Anger creeping into his tone, he demanded, “When in God’s name did you find this out?”

Peter Jones had been fully anticipating the hostile response. “Lloyd, I got the call from Gruber’s attorney, Joshua Schultz, a little less than twenty-four hours ago. As you well know, many defendants with serious charges pending try to tell us that they have valuable information on some other case. As you also well know, they’re not trying to help the prosecutor out of the goodness of their hearts. They’re looking to get their sentences reduced.”

“Peter, I couldn’t care less about what this guy’s motives are, and I’m speaking as the owner of the house he broke into,” Lloyd answered, his voice rising. “Why didn’t you call me right away?”

“Lloyd, calm down and let me tell you what happened yesterday. After I got the call from Schultz, I spoke to the prosecutor immediately. We followed up right away on Gruber’s claim that he was using a stolen E-ZPass tag when he drove back to New York after breaking into your house. His attorney gave us the information about the
stolen tag and the record checked out. E-ZPass only activates on the George Washington Bridge going from New Jersey to New York, not the other way around. So we don’t know when Gruber drove out to New Jersey, but we know when he drove back.”

“Go on,” Lloyd said brusquely.

“We know he was on the bridge going back at ten fifteen. Mariah Lyons spoke to her father at eight thirty, and she panicked at ten thirty when she called him again and only got his voice mail. We know he was dead at that point. So, with this time frame, it is very possible that Gruber was in your bedroom emptying your safe when he claims he heard the shot.”

“All right. So what’s next?”

“Gruber gave us the name of the fence he says he used to get rid of the stolen jewelry. His name is Billy Declar and he runs some kind of dumpy secondhand furniture store in lower Manhattan. He lives in the back room. He’s got a long criminal record and was Gruber’s cell mate the one time he served a prison term in New York. We’re working with the Manhattan DA’s office to get a search warrant for his place.”

“When are you going to execute the search warrant?”

“They promised us they’d get it from the judge by three o’clock, and our guys will go right over there with them. For what it’s worth, according to Gruber, Declar has your wife’s jewelry intact. He was planning to take it to Rio in the next couple of weeks and sell it there.”

“Getting the jewelry back would be fine, but, obviously much more important, can Gruber give any kind of description of whoever he claims he saw leaving the house?”

“So far, he’s holding back on that because he’s still trying to make a deal, but I must tell you that he has already stated through his lawyer that it was not Kathleen Lyons. So, if the information about the fence turns out to be true, then Gruber will have established sufficient
credibility for this office to arrange for him to sit down with our composite officer immediately and come up with a face.”

“I see.”

Jones knew that in the next minute, Lloyd Scott would be delivering an impassioned protest about the arrest of Kathleen Lyons. Hastily Jones added, “Lloyd, you must understand something. Wally Gruber is one of the most cunning crooks I have ever come across. The Manhattan DA is looking into other unsolved residential burglaries that he may have committed using the same kind of GPS tracker he put on your car. This guy knows if he can convince us that he was in your house at the approximate time of Professor Lyons’s death, it might work for him big-time.”

“I understand what you are telling me,” Lloyd Scott snapped. “Nevertheless, there was an ungodly rush to arrest and handcuff and incarcerate a frail, sick, and bewildered grieving woman, and you know it.”

Trying to keep his voice from rising, Scott paused, then added, “At this moment, I don’t care whether the jewelry is returned or not. I demand that you go immediately to the next step. I want Gruber to sit down with that composite officer and I want it to happen by tomorrow at the latest. If you don’t, I will immediately make such arrangements myself. And, frankly, I don’t care what you have to promise him. At the very least, you owe Kathleen Lyons that much.”

Before Peter Jones could respond, Lloyd Scott added, “I want to know right away what develops from that search warrant. I’ll be waiting for your call.”

As he heard the click that ended their conversation, Peter Jones saw his dream of becoming the next county prosecutor evaporating in front of his eyes.

A
t eleven o’clock, Alvirah was sitting on a chair near the receptionist’s desk in the beauty salon at Bergdorf Goodman waiting for, but not expecting, Lillian Stewart to keep her appointment there.

When she’d arrived fifteen minutes earlier, she’d explained to the receptionist why she was there. “I’m an old friend. I help Ms. Stewart out by covering at her apartment when she has a repairman coming in. She’s not answering her cell phone, and she told me a couple of days ago that she had a refrigerator guy coming in today at one o’clock and she might need me to let him in.”

The receptionist, a trim sixtyish woman with ash-blond hair, nodded. “I understand. I waited my whole day off for the television guy and he never showed up. And you know what drives me crazy? They give you a window of time for when they’ll be there and it doesn’t mean a thing.”

“You’re so right,” Alvirah agreed. “Anyhow, since I couldn’t reach her, and you know how impossible it is to even get an appointment with anyone who fixes anything, never mind reschedule it, I decided to come over here and find out when she’ll be finished. If she has a long appointment, I’ll meet the repair guy. The way I figure it, with school starting next week, she’s probably getting the whole works done today.”

The receptionist smiled and nodded. “Yes, she is. Manicure, pedicure,
haircut, coloring, highlights, and blow dry. She’ll be here at least three hours.”

“That’s my Lillian,” Alvirah said, smiling broadly. “She always looks so perfectly put together. How long has she been coming here?”

“Oh, my goodness.” The receptionist frowned in concentration. “She was already a regular client when I came to work here and that’s almost twenty years ago.”