The Shadow of Your Smile (7 page)

A week ago it had been the elderly babysitter who brought Sally to the emergency room. Renée Carter had arrived an hour later, wearing an evening gown and defensively explaining that the baby had been fine when she left her earlier that evening, and that she hadn’t realized her cell phone was turned off.

Now Monica realized that even with the makeup, Carter looked
older than she had appeared that night. At least thirty-five, she thought.

Today, Carter was accompanied by a young woman of about twenty, who nervously volunteered that she was Kristina Johnson, Sally’s new nanny.

Carter made no attempt at apologizing for being late. Nor, Monica noticed with dismay, did she make any attempt to pick up Sally. “I fired the other babysitter,” she explained in a voice that bordered on being nasal. “She didn’t tell me that Sally had been coughing all day. But I know Kristina won’t make that kind of mistake. She’s been highly recommended.”

She turned to Kristina. “Why don’t you dress Sally while I talk to the doctor?”

Sally began wailing when Monica, followed by Renée Carter, left the cubicle. Monica did not turn back to look at her. Instead, heavyhearted at the thought that Sally was being taken away by this seemingly indifferent mother, she firmly warned Carter to pay close attention to Sally’s allergies. “Do you have any pets, Ms. Carter?” she asked.

After a moment’s hesitation, Renée Carter said reassuringly, “No, I don’t have time for them, Doctor.” Then, with visible impatience, she listened as Monica explained the importance of watching for signs of asthma in Sally.

“I certainly understand, Doctor, and I want you to take over as Sally’s pediatrician,” she said hurriedly, when Monica asked her if she had any questions. Then she called into the cubicle, “Kristina, you about ready? I’m running late.”

She turned back to Monica. “I’ve got a car waiting outside, Doctor,” she explained. “I’ll drop Sally and Kristina at my apartment.” Then, seeing something in Monica’s face, she added, “Of course, I’ll make sure Sally is settled before I leave her.”

“I’m sure you will. I’ll call you this evening to see how Sally is
doing. You will be home, won’t you?” Monica asked, not caring that the tone of her voice was icy and disapproving. She looked at the chart. “This is your correct number, isn’t it?”

Renée Carter nodded her head impatiently as Monica read off the number, then turned and hurried back into the cubicle. “For Pete’s sake, Kristina,” she snapped, “hurry up! I haven’t got all day.”

11
 

He’s on the warpath, Esther Chambers thought as Greg Gannon strode through her office after lunch on Wednesday without acknowledging her presence. What’s happened since this morning? She watched as he went into his private office and picked up the file she had prepared for him. A moment later he was standing at her desk. “I haven’t had time to go through this stuff,” he snapped. “You’re sure everything is in order?”

She wanted to snap back,
Tell me one time in thirty-five years it hasn’t been in order.
Instead she bit her lip and said quietly, “I double-checked, sir.”

With mounting resentment, she watched as he stalked toward the double glass doors and turned down the corridor that led to the conference room of the Gannon Foundation.

He’s worried, Esther thought. What’s he got to worry about? His funds are all showing an excellent return, but half the time he’s in a rotten mood. I’m sick of it, she thought wearily, he’s getting worse and worse. With a flash of anger she remembered how Greg’s father was barely in his grave twenty-five years ago when Greg announced he was moving the offices of both the investment firm and the foundation to lavish suites on Park Avenue. That was also when he told her that for appearances’ sake, it would be better if she always addressed him as “Mr. Gannon,” not “Greg.”

Now they were in even more lavish suites in the Time Warner Center on Columbus Circle. “Dad was the little man’s hero, but no more of the butcher, the baker, and the candlestick maker clients for me,” he had said derisively.

Not that it didn’t turn out he was right to go after big clients, Esther thought, but he didn’t have to be so dismissive of his father. Maybe he’s a big success now but it sure doesn’t look to me as though he bought himself any happiness with all those mansions of his and his trophy wife. I swear the first words that woman ever uttered were “I WANT.” His sons don’t even talk to him after the way he treated their mother, and he and his brother are probably fighting at the board meeting right now.

“I’m sick of both of them.” Esther did not realize she had spoken aloud. She looked around quickly but of course there was no one in her office. Even so she felt her cheeks redden. One of these days I will say what I think, and that would
not
be smart, she warned herself. Why am I hanging around here? I can afford to retire, and when I sell the apartment, I’ll buy a house in Vermont instead of just renting there for a couple of weeks in the summer. The boys love to ski and snowboard. Manchester is a beautiful town and has great skiing nearby . . .

Her lips relaxed into an unconscious smile as she thought of her sister’s teenaged grandchildren whom she loved as if they were her own. No time like the present, she thought as she swiveled her chair to face her computer desk. Her smile widening, she opened a new file, labeled it “Bye-bye Gannons,” and started to type: “Dear Mr. Gannon, after thirty-five years I feel it is time. . . .”

The final paragraph read, “If you wish I will be glad to screen possible replacements for my position for one month, unless of course you prefer I leave sooner.”

Esther signed the letter, and feeling as if she had lifted a weight from her shoulders, put it in an envelope and at five o’clock placed
it on Greg Gannon’s desk. She knew that he might stop to check his messages after the board meeting and she wanted him to have a chance to digest the fact of her resignation overnight. He doesn’t like change unless he’s the one who makes it, she thought, and I don’t want him to persuade or bully me into staying longer than a month.

The receptionist was on the phone. Esther waved good-bye to her and went down in the elevator to the lobby floor, trying to decide if she should take time to shop in the gourmet supermarket on the lower level. I don’t need anything for tonight, she decided. I’ll go straight home.

She walked up Broadway to her apartment building opposite Lincoln Center, quietly enjoying the brisk temperature and the gusts of wind. Living in Vermont in the winter may be too much for some people, but I enjoy cold weather, she thought. I will miss the activity of the city, but that’s the way it is.

In her apartment building she stopped at the desk to get her mail. “There are two gentlemen waiting for you, Ms. Chambers,” the concierge told her.

Puzzled, Esther looked over at the seating area in the lobby. A dark-haired man, neatly dressed, was walking toward her. Speaking quietly so that the concierge could not hear him, he said, “Ms. Chambers, I’m Thomas Desmond from the Securities and Exchange Commission. My associate and I would like to have a word with you.” As he handed her his card, he said, “If possible we would prefer to talk in your apartment, where there’s no chance that we might be overheard.”

12
 

Sammy Barber had not become a successful hit man by behaving impulsively.

In the most unobtrusive way possible Sammy began to methodically study the daily pattern of Monica Farrell’s comings and goings. Within a few days he was able to establish that she never arrived at the hospital later than 8:30
A.M
. and two days out of three returned there at five
P.M
. Twice she took the Fourteenth Street bus across town from the hospital to her office. The other day she walked in both directions.

She was a fast walker, he noticed, taking long, graceful strides in her low-heeled boots. He doubted that trying to push her in front of an oncoming bus would work. She never stood perched on the edge of the curb, or tried to beat a light as it was turning red.

On Friday morning, at eight o’clock, he was sitting in his car on the opposite side of the street from the converted brownstone where she lived. He had already canvassed the neighborhood and knew that there was a wall about four feet high and a narrow alleyway separating the backyard of her residence from the backyard of the identical brownstone directly behind it. He decided it might be possible to get into her building that way.

When Monica left her apartment at 8:10 Sammy waited until she was safely in a cab, then got out of his car and walked across
the street. He was dressed in a hooded ski jacket and wearing dark glasses. Across his chest was a heavy canvas sack with empty boxes protruding from it. He knew that anyone seeing him would think he was a private service messenger.

Averting his face to avoid the security camera, Sammy opened the door into the outer vestibule of Monica’s residence. In an instant he learned what he had come to find out. There were eight buzzers with name cards next to each of them. Two apartments to a floor, he thought. Monica Farrell was in 1B. That’s got to be the back apartment on this floor. His hands in gloves, he rang the bell of the tenant on the fourth floor, claimed a delivery, and gained entry into the inner hallway. Then, wedging the inner door open with his bag, he immediately called that woman back and claimed he had rung the wrong bell and the delivery was for the tenant in 3B, whose name he read from the card next to that bell.

“Next time be more careful,” an annoyed voice told him.

There won’t be a next time, Sammy thought as the door closed behind him. Wanting to know the layout of Monica’s apartment, he walked noiselessly down the long, narrow hall to 1B. He was about to try his string of master keys to unlock the door when he heard the whine of a vacuum coming from her apartment. Her cleaning woman must be in there, he thought.

Turning swiftly, he retreated down the hallway. The elevator was descending. He did not want to run into a tenant who might remember him. Moving rapidly now, he left the building. He had learned what he needed to know. Monica Farrell lived on the ground floor in the rear. That meant her apartment was the one with the patio, which meant she has a back door. There’s no lock I can’t open, Sammy thought, and if she has a back window, too, so much the better.

It’s the best way to handle it, he thought dispassionately. A burglary attempt gone wrong. Intruder apparently got nervous when Dr. Farrell woke up and saw him. It happens every day.

But as he got back in his car and tossed the delivery bag on the backseat, Sammy’s expression became morose. A dedicated Internet researcher, he had printed out all the information he could find on Monica Farrell. It wasn’t as if she was a celebrity, but that didn’t mean she was just any doctor. She’d written some articles about kids and gotten some awards.

Who’d want to kill her and why? Sammy wondered. Am I doing it too cheap? That was a question that nagged him as he drove to his apartment on the Lower East Side, his eyes burning for sleep. He had worked at his regular job as bouncer from nine p.m. until four
A.M
., then gone directly to Monica’s street on the chance that she might have a middle-of-the-night emergency call.

He’d been prepared for that, with a dark jacket, tie, and limo service ID, figuring that if she did come running out, she might very well take a gypsy limo instead of trying to find a taxi.

I’m covering a lot of bases, Sammy thought. He pulled off his sweatshirt and jeans and threw himself into bed, too tired to undress fully.

13