Before I Say Good-Bye (15 page)

Gert’s eyes filled with tears as she remembered how ten-year-old Nell had sobbed in her arms: “Aunt Gert, Mommy and Daddy
did so
say good-bye to me. You know how Daddy always ran his fingers through my hair? I was at recess, and he came to me and did that. And then Mommy kissed me. I felt her kiss me. I started to cry. I knew then that they were gone.
I knew it.
But Grandpa says it didn’t happen. He says that I imagined it.”

I asked Cornelius how he explained the fact that Nell had that experience at precisely the same moment her parents’ plane went off the radar screen, Gert thought. I asked him how he could be so certain that Nell only imagined a visit from her parents. His answer was that I was filling Nell’s head with nonsense.

And, Gert thought, even before that terrible time, Nell had known when Madeline, her grandmother, had died. She was only four years old, but I was there when she came running downstairs. She was so happy
because “Grammy” had come into her room during the night, and she thought that meant Grammy was home from the hospital. Typically, though, Cornelius had dismissed that as a dream as well.

I wouldn’t dare let him know what Bonnie Wilson told me, Gert thought. Whether or not Nell talks to Bonnie herself, I’ll make her promise not to tell Mac about it, she vowed.

At eight o’clock that evening, she called Nell. The answering machine was on and picked up after the third ring. She probably wants to be left alone tonight, Gert thought. She tried not to sound nervous when she left her message: “Nell, just anxious to see how you are,” she began. Then, after a moment of hesitation, she blurted out, “Nell, it’s very important that I talk to you. I—”

She heard a click as the phone was picked up. “Aunt Gert, I’m here. Is something wrong?”

From the thickness of her voice, Gert could sense that Nell had been crying. She threw caution to the winds: “Nell, there’s something I have to tell you. Bonnie Wilson, a psychic friend of mine, came to see me today. She puts people who have passed on in contact with their loved ones here.

“Nell, I can refer you to people who have absolute faith in her. She is the real thing, I’m sure of it. When Bonnie was here today she told me that Adam has contacted her from the other side and wants to talk to you. Nell, please let me take you to see her.”

She had rushed every word, anxious to get it out before either Nell hung up or she lost her courage and changed her mind about telling her grandniece about Bonnie’s visit.

“Gert, I don’t believe in all that stuff,” Nell said softly. “You know that. I know that it means a lot to you, but it just doesn’t work for me. So please don’t bring it up again—especially not anything having to do with Adam.”

Gert winced at the click as Nell broke the connection. She was tempted to redial Nell’s number and apologize for intruding in such a way, and at such a terrible time.

What Gert did not know was that when Nell hung up the phone, she was trembling with fear and uncertainty.

I happened to catch Bonnie Wilson on that bizarre television program last year, Nell thought, the one where they invited people to call in and test the psychic powers of the experts. Unless it was a complete sham, she was astonishing in the way she related to some people in the audience. Nell remembered in particular the vivid picture Bonnie had conjured up when the woman asked the psychic about her husband, who had died in an automobile accident.

“You were waiting for him in the restaurant where you became engaged,” she had said. “It was your fifth wedding anniversary. He wants you to know he loves you and that he’s happy, even though he feels cheated of all the years he’d hoped to spend with you.”

Dear God, Nell thought, is it possible that Adam really
is
trying to reach me? I know that Mac hates for me to talk of it, but I do believe that the dead have a real presence in our lives. After all, I
know
that Mom and Dad came to say good-bye to me when they died, and I
know
they were with me, guiding me to safety when I almost drowned in Hawaii. Why, then, should
it be so improbable for Adam to try to reach me now? And why did he contact someone else instead of coming directly to me as Mom and Dad and Grammy did?

Nell looked at the phone, struggling to resist the urge to call Gert and confess to her just how confused she was.

thirty-two

B
Y THE TIME
he had returned home after his daily run in Central Park, a sense of unease had replaced Dan Minor’s previous feeling of euphoria. He admitted to himself that it was grasping at straws to hope that he would spot his mother, Quinny, as Lilly Brown had called her, sitting on a park bench, or that Lilly would phone one day soon and say, “She’s here in the shelter.”

A long shower, however, helped to revive his spirits somewhat. He dressed in chinos, a sport shirt and loafers and went to the bar refrigerator. He wasn’t sure yet where he wanted to have dinner, but he did know a glass of chardonnay with cheese and crackers was in order.

He settled on the couch in the sitting area of the spacious, high-ceilinged room, deciding that after three and a half months the place was finally beginning to shape up. Why do I feel so much more at home in a condo in Manhattan than I ever did living on Cathedral Parkway in Washington? he asked himself, although he knew the answer.

Some of Quinny’s genes, he guessed. His mother had been born in Manhattan, and according to Lilly Brown New York City was “her favorite place in the world,” although his grandparents moved back to Maryland when she was about twelve.

How much of her do I actually remember, and how much of what I know of her comes from the things I have heard about her? Dan asked himself.

He knew that his father had fallen in love with another woman when Dan was three years old, so he had no memory of ever living with him. The only really positive thing I can say about dear old Dad, Dan thought, is that he didn’t fight for custody of me after Mom disappeared.

He knew his grandparents despised his father, but they had been careful not to show that to him when he was growing up. “Unfortunately, a lot of marriages break up, Dan,” they told him. “The one who doesn’t want the marriage to end can be badly hurt. After a while, people get over the pain. In time, I’m sure, your mother would have gotten over the divorce, but she couldn’t get over what happened to
you.”

Why do I think that after all these years my mother and I could have any kind of relationship? Dan asked himself.

But we
could,
he thought. I
know
we could. The private investigator they had sent to find her after they glimpsed her on that television documentary had been able to glean some information about her. “She’s worked as an aide to old people,” he told them, “and apparently she is very good at it. But when depression hits her, she starts drinking again, and then it’s back to the streets.”

The investigator had found a social worker who reported once having a long talk with Quinny. Now, as he sipped his wine, Dan mulled over one thing in particular that social worker said: “I asked Quinny what she would like most to have in this life. She looked at me for what seemed like a long time, then whispered,
‘Redemption.’ ”

The word echoed in his mind.

The phone rang. Dan walked over to it and checked the Caller ID. His eyebrows raised when he saw that the call was from Penny Maynard, the fashion designer who lived on the fourth floor of his loft building. They had chatted a few times in the elevator. She was about his own age and sleekly attractive. He had been tempted to ask her out, but then decided he didn’t want to have any kind of close friendship with someone he would be seeing regularly in the elevator.

He decided to let the answering machine take a message.

The machine clicked on. “Dan,” Penny said firmly. “I know you’re home. A couple of the other people in the building dropped by, and we all agreed it was time we got to know our resident pediatrician. So come on up and join us. You don’t have to stay more than twenty minutes, unless, of course, you decide to partake of one of my thrown-together pasta suppers.”

In the background, Dan could hear murmured conversation. Suddenly heartened at the prospect of being with other people, he picked up the phone. “I’d be delighted to come,” he said.

Finding the people at Penny’s gathering to be pleasant, and feeling relaxed and cheered, he stayed for the pasta and got back to his loft just in time to catch the
ten o’clock news. There was a brief segment covering the memorial Mass for Adam Cauliff, the architect who had been killed in the boating accident in New York harbor.

Rosanna Scotto of Fox News was reporting: “The explosion that killed Cauliff and three others continues to be under investigation. Former congressman Cornelius MacDermott is escorting Adam Cauliff’s widow, his granddaughter, Nell, from the church. Rumors are rampant that Nell MacDermott may run for the congressional seat her grandfather held for almost fifty years, since Bob Gorman, the incumbent, is believed to be retiring from public life.”

There was a close-up of Nell on the screen. Dan Minor’s eyes widened—she looked very familiar. Wait a minute, he thought. I met her four or five years ago. It was a reception at the White House. She was with her grandfather, and I was escorting Congressman Dade’s daughter.

He remembered that he and Nell MacDermott had chatted for a few minutes and discovered they were both graduates of Georgetown. It was hard to believe that since that chance meeting, she had been married, widowed and now might be setting off on a political career of her own.

The camera lingered on Nell’s face. The rigidly composed features and pain-filled eyes were a startling contrast to the sparkling and smiling young woman Dan remembered.

I’ll write her a note, he thought. She probably won’t remember me at all, but I’d like to do it. She looks so grief stricken. Adam Cauliff must have been quite a guy, he decided.

Friday, June 16

thirty-three

W
INIFRED
J
OHNSON
had lived in a building at the corner of Amsterdam Avenue and Eighty-first Street. At ten o’clock on Friday morning, Nell met her grandfather in the lobby there.

“Faded grandeur, Mac,” she said when he arrived.

He looked around the lobby, which obviously had seen better days. The marble floor was stained, the lighting dim. The furniture consisted of two shabby armchairs.

“Winifred’s mother phoned the manager this morning to tell him we were coming,” she explained as the handyman, who seemed to double as doorman, waved them to the single elevator.

“Nell, I think it’s a big mistake coming here,” Cornelius MacDermott said as the elevator lumbered upward toward the fifth floor. “I don’t know where the district attorney’s investigation is going to lead, but if Winifred was either involved in or had any knowledge of bribery, or if . . .” He stopped.

“Don’t
think
of suggesting that Adam was involved in bribery or bid rigging, Mac,” she said fiercely.

“I’m not suggesting anything other than the fact that if the police at any point are able to get a search warrant
for these premises, it won’t look good that you and I beat them to it.”

“Mac,
please.”
Nell tried to cover the catch in her voice. “I’m just trying to help. I came here primarily to see what kind of financial provisions Winifred may have made for her mother; I’m looking for insurance policies and that sort of thing. Mrs. Johnson is worried sick that she’ll have to leave Old Woods Manor nursing home. She’s happy there. I don’t think she’s a particularly easy person, but it’s obvious she has terrible rheumatoid arthritis. If I were in pain all the time, I don’t think I’d be oozing charm either.”

“What has oozing charm got to do with our snooping around in Winifred’s apartment?” Mac asked as they stepped off the elevator. “Come on, Nell. We used to be honest with each other. You’re not a Girl Scout doing a good deed. If there was bribery going on at Walters and Arsdale, you’re hoping to find something that will tie Winifred to the problem and leave Adam as clean as the driven snow.”

They walked down the dingy hallway. “Winifred’s apartment is 5E,” Nell said. She reached into her shoulder bag for the keys Mrs. Johnson had given her.

“Double lock and safety lock,” Mac observed dourly. “A professional could bust them with a can opener.”

When Nell opened the door, she hesitated for a moment, then stepped inside. Winifred was here only a week ago, she thought, but already the place has a feeling of being neglected, abandoned.

They stood for a moment in the foyer, getting their bearings before venturing farther into the apartment. A
table to the left of the door held a vase of wilting flowers, the kind of stingy arrangement sold in grocery stores. The living room was directly in front of them, a long, narrow, cheerless space with a threadbare Persian-style carpet, an aging red velour-covered sofa and matching chair, an upright piano and a library table.