Legacy of Secrets (5 page)

At her party later, on the dance floor once again with
Wil, Shannon saw her father leave his lonely place on the edge of the crowd. His eyes met hers, and the weary frown etched between his brows disappeared as he made his way toward her through the laughing crowds.

“A dance for your old dad?” he asked. His eyes were full of love as she stepped into his arms, slight and delicate as a breeze.

“Thank you, Daddy, for a wonderful party,” Shannon murmured, her head against his chest.

He sighed ruefully. “I always wanted the best for you, right from the day you were born.” He hesitated, then said sadly, “I know I wasn’t around enough, when you were growing up.” He shrugged his big shoulders helplessly. “I missed so much. I was always too busy, pursuing a dream. But I needed to do it, Shannon. At first to make something out of our existence after your mother’s death, and then for the hell of it. I enjoyed my work, I got a kick out of making money. But sometimes I sacrificed you.”

She hugged him happily. “No, you didn’t, Dad, honestly. You were always there for the important things. Remember the time I fell off my pony and got a concussion? When I opened my eyes in the hospital you were holding my hand. And the time I sang and danced so badly in the school play? You were right there in the front row applauding like mad. Oh, and always on Christmas mornings and on those boring grown-up vacations.”

He pulled a wry face and she laughed. “And you’ll be there to walk me down the aisle.” She rested her head affectionately against his broad shoulder, feeling the smoothness of his jacket under her cheek. With her father’s arms around her she had always felt safe from the world.

There was a tap on his shoulder. A good-looking young man grinned at him and said, “Can’t monopolize her all night, Mr. Keeffe. Give the other guys a break, won’t you?”

Bob stepped back, watching for a moment as the young man swept her off, then he made his way to the side of the
marquee. He looked at his young daughter, so happy, so carefree, so at ease in her world, her short skirts whirling and her long hair flowing like a gaudy, brave, copper-red banner. Then he turned away, and leaving the carefree world behind, he walked alone and unnoticed to where the edge of the velvet night sky touched the silver of the lake.

L
ATE THE NEXT MORNING
Shannon drifted drowsily from sleep to consciousness. She stretched her arms over her head like a lazy cat, running her hands through her tangled copper hair, smiling as she recalled the previous night. She only wished she could have her party all over again.

She laughed, remembering everyone dancing Irish reels in their chic clothing, and the men stripping off their dinner jackets as the music got faster and they got hotter. They had quenched their thirst in iced champagne and danced until dawn, though the “old folks,” as her friends laughingly called them, had long since departed for their beds.

She lay back against the pillows, thinking about her new fiancé, Wil, asking herself if he wasn’t the nicest, most handsome, most charming young man she had ever met. Except for her father, of course, because Big Bob Keeffe was in a class of his own when it came to charm, looks, and niceness.

She closed her eyes, imagining herself walking down the aisle on her father’s arm in a cloud of white silk and lace, and Wil waiting for her at the altar with that look of love in his eyes, and she sighed with contentment.

She threw on a robe and drifted lazily downstairs, filled with a happy feeling of well-being. The servants had been working all night and the huge house was immaculately tidy. There were fresh flower arrangements on the tables
and sideboards and no hint of last night’s cigarette smoke. No one would ever have guessed there had been a party, were it not for the green-and-white striped marquee still on the lawn.

Fresh coffee bubbled in the machine on the marble console in the breakfast room, and she helped herself to a cup, adding a guilty spoonful of sugar and sipping it thankfully. Through the window she caught a glimpse of Wil on the tennis court. She guessed he was playing the local pro and she groaned, admiring his stamina.

Taking her coffee, she strode down the hall to her father’s study and tapped on the door. There was no reply and she peeked in. The room was different from the rest of the house: it was small and crowded, and Shannon smiled; her father’s study described his personality.

Big Bob Keeffe could never have been called “neat” and he spread himself and his belongings over every possible surface. The old-fashioned rolltop desk was stuffed with papers, architects’ cabinets bulged with plans, a table was heaped with drawings, and a pair of battered red leather armchairs was piled with files. Two of his most prized paintings from his collection of Irish masters hung on the walls: an early Orpen portrait of a pale-skinned, red-haired woman in a pink satin gown that he said reminded him of his first wife; and a harsh Yeats landscape that only he admired.

On his desk was an inexpensive multipicture frame filled with photos of Shannon through the years, and on the wall was what he said was his greatest treasure and achievement, Shannon’s framed diploma from Harvard. “Now I know you’ll never starve,” he had told her, laughing, at the boisterous celebration at Lock Obers restaurant after the graduation ceremony. “Brains as well as beauty, that’s my girl.”

The phone rang, shattering the peaceful silence, and Shannon caught it on the first ring. It was her father’s partner, Brad Jeffries, and he sounded startled when she answered.
“Just calling to say thanks,” he said quickly. “Great party, Shannon.”

Shannon had known Brad almost all her life. He and his wife had both been at the party last night, though she hadn’t noticed them dancing a reel, and now she thought about it neither of them had looked as though they were enjoying themselves.

Her father’s other partner, good-looking Jack Wexler, had been there, too, with the latest successful New York model on his arm, but she thought he hadn’t been doing much dancing either.

She scribbled a quick note to her father asking him to ring Brad, added “Love you, Dad—and thanks,” and signed her name with a flourish. Then she went in search of her stepmother.

But Buffy was not in her room either. The bedroom with its fresh blue-and-white sprigged wallpaper and crisp blue taffeta curtains was empty. So was her vast dressing room with its ranges of neat closets and her pale-paneled bathroom, and when Shannon finally found the maid she told her that her stepmother had left early for the city.

She went back to her room, put on a bathing suit and shorts, and went back to the tennis court to find Wil.

She stared, surprised at his tennis partner. It wasn’t the club pro: it was Jonas Brennan. Sorry, she corrected herself, grinning, she meant Jonas
K.
Brennan. Or “J.K.,” as he preferred to be known.

J.K. was her father’s protégé. He had taken him into the business straight out of a hick southern college. Young Jonas had shown up at his office, clutching his degree and a minuscule CV, haunting the place for three days until the exasperated secretary had threatened to send for the police. “I’m not going until I see Mr. Keeffe,” he’d said stubbornly, and he had meant it.

Finally, admiring his persistence, Bob had seen him. He had inspected his papers and his degree and thrown them contemptuously onto the desk. He’d said, “You’ve got nerve coming to see me with these.”

“Goddam it, sir, I had no choice,” the young man had roared back angrily. “I was raised in that town. I know it’s hicksville and so is the college. My grandparents were sharecroppers, my father was a drunk, and my mother sold beer in the local saloon—and herself on the side whenever the moon was right. What other college could I afford? But that’s no yardstick of my ability.”

Silenced, Bob had studied him. Jonas was of middle height, stocky and strong, with smooth brown hair and nervous, angry brown eyes behind gold-rimmed spectacles. He remembered himself at that age: poor and full of rage and defiance. He hadn’t been dissimilar from this boy.

That had been ten years ago. J. K. Brennan was now thirty-two years old and there was nothing he didn’t know about the Keeffe businesses. He was Bob’s right-hand man and Keeffe would have trusted him with his life.

Not Shannon; she had laughed when J.K. had awkwardly come courting her. “I could never date anyone called Jonas,” she had teased, and to her horror, J.K. had actually blushed, before turning abruptly away. Since then he had kept his distance, and she had felt ashamed of her petty cruelty and had gone out of her way to make him feel at ease whenever their paths crossed. Still, there was a distance between them; there always had been and always would be. He was what he was, and she was what she was, and they were as different as chalk and cheese.

The sky was an overcast gray and the air was still and humid, and both Wil and Jonas were sweating.

“Morning, J.K.,” she called as Wil swung himself over the net and deposited a kiss on her cheek. “You guys must be feeling pretty good this morning.”

“As well as can be expected,” J.K. said seriously, and she laughed. J.K. always took everything literally.

“Let’s go for a swim in the lake,” she said to Wil. “There may be a breeze down there. It’ll cool you off.” Smiling, she turned to Jonas. “You too, of course, J.K.”

He shrugged, his clean-shaven face coloring. “Thanks, but I guess you must have a lot to talk about. After all, you
haven’t seen each other for at least a couple of hours.” And turning abruptly, he strode toward the house.

Shannon sighed. She said irritably, “Why is the man always so darned awkward? He makes everyone feel uncomfortable. Except my dad.”

“He’s a clever bastard, though,” Wil said, stripping off his T-shirt. “Come on, let’s take that dip in the lake. I sure could use it.”

The approach to the lake was through an avenue of plane trees, Bob Keeffe’s pride and joy because it reminded him of Provence, and of the van Gogh landscape that hung in his office at Keeffe Center in Manhattan.

“The whole world lights up for me every time I look at that painting,” he had told Shannon. “I used to keep a postcard of it pinned to my wall at college. I never dreamed I would ever own it. I just thought maybe I’d get to see it in a museum one day. And now it’s on my office wall. That’s what success means to me, daughter. The ability to make dreams come true.”

But today the humidity had brought out the midges and gnats, and Wil and Shannon ran, shrieking with laughter, down the avenue’s shady length, waving their arms frantically over their heads.

“Look,” Shannon exclaimed, peering at the ornamental wooden gazebo overlooking the water fifty yards along the bank. “Someone is there. And still in his dinner jacket!” She laughed. “I guess he never made it home.”

They strolled hand in hand to the gazebo, giggling like children at their find. They drew nearer and saw the silver hair and broad shoulders and Shannon stared for a moment, puzzled. She ran, alarmed, to the gazebo, stopping suddenly on the steps, clutching the wooden rail. Her hand flew to her mouth to stifle the scream that refused to come. Her eyes grew round with horror and blackness swirled around her. A gun lay on the floor. There was blood all over her father’s white dinner jacket and a bullet through his brain. Bob Keeffe was dead.

T
HE LITTLE LOCAL COURTROOM
where the inquest was held a week later was packed with newspapermen. TV cameras waited outside, but Buffy, beautiful and haggard in a black suit and wide-brimmed black hat, averted her face. And Shannon, in a black linen shirt and skirt and wearing sunglasses to hide her tear-reddened eyes, trembled as the coroner discussed her father’s wounds and the circumstances of his death.

The coroner said the star-shaped wound around the bullet hole was caused by gas blown out of the muzzle, proving that gun had been held directly against the head. Taking into account his business difficulties, the coroner could only conclude that Robert Keeffe had killed himself. He pronounced the death a suicide.

“It’s not true!” Shannon shouted wildly. “It’s just not true. My father would never take his own life. Never, never. You don’t understand … you don’t know him like I do. He just … he just wouldn’t leave me like that….”