Close to You (29 page)

Five years. How had the time gone by so quickly?

And still Linda's disappearance went unsolved.

But that might change soon, with the national exposure the case was about to receive. Keith had given her a heads-up on next week's
FRESHER LOOK
, bringing the tapes to her to dub for the promo.

“I knew Linda Anderson,” she had told him.

“Oh, yeah. Her mother mentioned something about that when we were out there. You worked with her?”

“Yes. We got to be good friends.”

She thought she could read Keith's mind.
No, Linda wasn't gay
—
though I wished she had been,
Abigail was tempted to snap. But she had said nothing.

Eliza slipped out at lunchtime and took a cab to Bergdorf Goodman. She wanted to pick out the birthday present herself. Paige was working out to be the most competent, conscientious assistant Eliza had ever had. Eliza was impressed with how the young woman had handled all the anxiety that had been swirling around her. It was a bonus that Paige had such a winning personality. Eliza was very happy with her and she wanted to show it.

She had noticed that Paige was a clotheshorse, dressing stylishly on what Eliza knew was not a big salary. As Eliza went in through the store's Fifth Avenue entrance, she headed for the sweater section.

The cashmere collection was extensive, a cornucopia of colors and styles. Eliza had trouble deciding between a jewel-necked black one and a cornflower-blue turtleneck. She loved the blue, and thought it would look terrific on Paige, but the black might be more practical. She bought both. Paige was more than worth it.

Eliza stopped in the children's department and picked out a new winter jacket with matching hat and mittens for Janie and then scooted over to the hosiery section and bought a dozen pairs of pantyhose for herself. She was
satisfied with her forty-five minutes of power shopping when she went out again into the Fifth Avenue sunlight As she stood on the corner of Fifty-seventh Street, waiting for a cab in the crowded lunchtime traffic, Eliza glanced across the street in the direction of Tiffany's.

He didn't see her, but Eliza thought she recognized Samuel's tall, lanky frame coming out of the store.
Yes, that was him,
she confirmed as the figure walked to the corner and waited for the light to change. Samuel was carrying a small blue shopping bag in his hand.

Eliza was relieved when a yellow taxi glided to a stop. She quickly got into the backseat of the cab. She didn't want to see Samuel right now. Saturday night would be soon enough to tell him what she knew he wouldn't want to hear.

She certainly hoped that the bag he was carrying didn't hold something else for her.

Cindy's obstetrician said she thought they were still a few weeks away from delivery, and first babies sometimes came a little late. But Cindy had been having those Braxton Hicks contractions and Keith was nervous.

He was always nervous. He lived his life that way.

Range said he understood, but Keith got the feeling there was some resentment there. Keith was worried about taking time off after the baby was born. He was doing all he could to get ahead of the game. He wanted to shoot as many elements as possible for the upcoming
FRESHER LOOKS.

Tiredly, Keith made himself call Sloan-Kettering to confirm that Dr. Lieber, the head of pediatric oncology, would be avaliable for an interview on Monday morning.

If only Cindy could hold off until he got that piece in the can.

Eliza hustled Janie and James into the car on Saturday afternoon and drove over to Demarest Farms to pick out their Halloween pumpkins. The three of them stood in the long line and waited for the hayride that took them to the patch behind the acres of apple and peach orchards. The kids searched intently for just the right pumpkins, selecting bright orange orbs they could barely carry. Afterwards, back at the big red barn, Eliza picked out an apple pie and a quart of vanilla ice cream for dessert that night.

Eliza had given a lot of thought to how she wanted to handle things with Samuel.

She was going to make dinner herself and, after Janie went to bed, quietly talk to him about everything. She hoped that they could continue their relationship as friends. She hoped he would understand. She hoped he wouldn't be too hurt.

Mrs. Garcia had done the shopping and everything was ready for her to start cooking. Thick pork chops, sweet-and-sour red cabbage, large baking potatoes. A good, hearty fall dinner.

As she pulled the station wagon out of the crowded parking lot, Eliza noticed that the gas gauge was near empty.
Mrs. Garcia had forgotten to fill the tank. Eliza steered the car toward the gas station.

 

“What the hell are you wearing?” Augie demanded as a preening Helene swaggered into the station office.

“You were holding out on me, Sugar.” Helene wrapped her arms around her husband's wide girth. “I found this in the bottom of your drawer. This, and those other things. They're beautiful, Augie. Were you going to surprise me?”

Sex or no sex, Augie verbally let loose on her.

 

Eliza half listened to Janie and James discuss how they were going to carve their pumpkins, but mostly she thought about Samuel as the high-test poured into the Volvo's tank. She was staring at the doorway to the station's office when a tall, thin blonde wearing a heavy turtleneck sweater and tight-fitting black leather pants walked out.

That's not a happy camper,
Eliza thought, looking at the sour expression on the woman's face.

The woman passed by the car and the autumn sunlight reflected off a pin on the neck of her sweater.

Eliza went slack-jawed as she recognized the sapphire-and-diamond pin that John had bought before he died. The gift to commemorate Janie's birth.

She grabbed a pencil and an old gas receipt from the glove compartment and scribbled down the license-plate number of the car as the woman tore out of the lot.

 

She handed Janie the
New York Times.

“Here. You and James spread this out on the kitchen table. Then go get your markers and draw the faces you want on the pumpkins. I have to go upstairs for a minute. When I get back, we'll carve the pumpkins. Don't you dare go into the drawer and get the knife until I come back. Understand?”

The children nodded solemnly.

Eliza ran up to her bedroom and called the HoHoKus police.

Eliza came down from tucking in Janie for the night to find the jewelry box waiting at her place at the dining-room table.

“What's this?”

“Open it and see. Even if the police do get your jewelry back, I hope this will be something that you'll cherish as I cherish you, Eliza.” Samuel smiled contentedly.

Eliza felt like a louse. “Samuel. I can't. I have to talk to you.”

“Open it first,” he urged. “Then we'll talk.”

Uncomfortably, Eliza lifted the lid of the blue box. Inside was the companion necklace to the starfish earrings.

“It's beautiful, Samuel. Absolutely beautiful. But I can't . . .”

“Here, let me put it on you,” he interrupted. He stood behind her and fastened the gold clasp and then turned Eliza by the shoulders to face him.

“It looks wonderful on you.”

“I can't accept it, Samuel.”

“Of course you can,” he insisted. “I want you to have it. It's as if it was made for you.”

“Oh, Samuel. You dear, sweet man. You've been
through so much. I wouldn't want to hurt you for anything in the world.”

The happy expression on Samuel's face changed as he began to get the picture.

 

That idiot Helene!

He'd been enraged when Helene had showed up with that pin at the station today. Now the cops were at his door with a search warrant.

Augie thought fast. Most everything he had stolen was gone. Fenced. Just the few things of Eliza's he hadn't gotten rid of yet Now he was glad that Larson's strongbox had only had some papers in it.

All they could pin on him was the Blake burglary.

Augie demanded to call an attorney. A good lawyer might be able to get the charges dropped in exchange for information about a double murder.

 

“I'm so sorry, Samuel. But I hope, when you think about it, you'll realize that I'm right. This isn't the time for us, but I do hope we can still be friends.”

Friends.
Even to Eliza it sounded so lame.

Samuel tried valiantly, but couldn't conceal the hurt on his face. Stricken, he walked slowly to the door.

“Here. You must take this with you.” Eliza handed the jewelry box to him.

“No,” he shook his head. “Please. Keep it. For all you did for Sarah and for me.”

The hallways of Memorial Sloan-Kettering brought it all back.

How many times had she walked the polished floors of the mammoth hospital complex, unable to distinguish if she was nauseous because of the early stages of pregnancy or because her young husband lay in fevered pain in his hospital room dying?

But Eliza had never been to pediatrics.

The hospital staff tried to make the surroundings as happy as they could. But it was what it was. The afflicted children, many in wheelchairs, soldiered through their treatments. Their hairless heads made them look older than their years. Little, old, bald boys and girls, fighting for their young lives.

The camera recorded Dr. Lieber as he escorted Eliza through the hallways.

“The problem, as you know, is that children grow so quickly. So do their cancer cells.”

“When you finally know that nothing is going to help a child, how do you help the parents?” Eliza asked.

“We have counselors on staff. But despite the best efforts, I really don't know how much counseling helps. How
can you make something like this better? The only thing is, sometimes the child has been through so much, that the parents just want it to be over for them. Over for the child, I mean. The parents almost never want to give up.”

Eliza thought of Samuel. “I have a friend who just lost his daughter to cancer. In fact, she came here for treatment.”

“What was her name?”

“Sarah Morton.”

Dr. Lieber shook his head. “I can't place the name. But I'm not surprised. There are so many kids. How is your friend doing now?”

“Not well,” Eliza answered, thinking of Samuel's face as he left her house Saturday night.

“It takes a long time.”

 

The crew took pictures in the pediatric lounge, careful to shoot from the back of the bald heads or from an angle so that the youthful identities would not be recognizable. No faces could be shown in the piece unless the parents signed release forms.

There was one little girl whose face could be taped. Her parents had agreed to be interviewed for the story. The mother was stoic as she told the story of what they had been going through over the past two years. The father asked that the camera be turned off when he started to break down.

 

Dr. Lieber met up with them again when they were finished shooting. He handed Eliza his card.

“Call me if I can be of any other help. I was thinking about your friend, Ms. Blake. If you'd like, have him call me and I will be happy to arrange counseling for him if he wants.”

 

After the broadcast that evening, Eliza called Samuel. When she heard the initial hope in his voice she wondered if she had done the right thing.

“I just wanted to see how you were doing.”

“Oh,” he said dully. “I'm fine. Please, don't worry about me, Eliza. That would make it worse.”

“I am worried, Samuel. You've been through too much. I wanted to tell you that I interviewed a doctor at Sloan-Kettering today and he said that he would set up some grief counseling for you if you wanted it.”

“No, thanks. This is something I have to work through on my own.”

“A little professional help wouldn't hurt.”

“What is a therapist going to tell me that I don't know already? Sarah's dead.” His voice was morose. “Thank you for thinking of me.”

The phone clicked in her ear.

 

She thought about Samuel as the car crawled up the West Side Highway. At the George Washington Bridge, Eliza pulled Dr. Lieber's card from her wallet and tapped in the number on her cellular phone pad. She got his answering machine and left a message.

“Dr. Lieber, this is Eliza Blake. I am very worried about that friend of mine I was telling you about today. Would you please give me a call when you can?”

She left both her office and home phone numbers.

It was amazing. One minute you thought you had the worst problems imaginable. The next, those problems paled by comparison to new ones. Larson's financial worries were far from his mind when he got the call.

The police wanted him to come in and talk.

“I'm sorry, Ms. Blake. I didn't get your message until this morning.”

Eliza realized that most people did not get apologies from doctors who hadn't returned non-emergency phone calls made after office hours only the night before. That was the power of KEY News. Phone calls were returned. Promptly.

She described her phone call with Samuel to Dr. Lieber.

“I'm not a psychiatrist, Ms. Blake, but it sounds like your friend definitely needs some help. Would you like me to have someone here call him?”

Eliza weighed the offer. Was she doing this out of guilt? Would Samuel be angry with her? That shouldn't matter to her if his well-being hung in the balance. But he might shut down totally, feeling alienated that she had broken his trust. She wasn't sure what to do. She wanted to do something to help him.

“Yes, Dr. Lieber,” Eliza decided. “I think that might be a good thing. I can't get through to him.”