The Shadow of Your Smile

by Mary Higgins Clark

  Forrest picked up a glass of water, and swallowed. “Pamela Gannon is one cold fish. She admits she gave Hadley and Langdon the orders to get rid of Olivia Morrow and Dr. Farrell. She also told us that Langdon had hired Sammy Barber to kill Monica Farrell. We got a search warrant for Barber’s apartment and found a tape of him and Langdon talking about getting rid of Dr. Farrell. So they’re both cooked. Not to mention Larry Walker, who tried to abduct Farrell outside her apartment. He said that Barber had hired him to kill her since there was too much heat on him. Sammy has taken off, but there’s a warrant out for him. We’ll find him.”

  “Why was Scott Alterman ever fool enough to go to that apartment?” Stanton asked.

  “Pamela was in the Southampton House when he got there. She told him she was divorcing Greg, that he had been miserable to live with, and she had found proof that his uncle had an heir. Alterman walked into her trap that night. When he went to the apartment, she put just enough knockout drops in his drink to make him look drunk, and then Langdon hustled him down to the river. The poor guy never had a chance,” Forrest answered.

  “Langdon planted the money and the shopping bag in Peter’s office to set him up,” he continued. “He went directly to Peter’s private office after he killed Renée Carter. He never realized that Peter was sleeping it off in the next room. It’s a good thing that Langdon didn’t see him there or I don’t think he’d still be alive.

  “Now the way it looks, Greg Gannon will spend the next twenty years or so in prison. Everything he owns will be sold to pay back the investors he defrauded. Everything Pamela Gannon has will be taken from her, not that she’ll have any use for any of it. She’s looking at several life sentences.”

  “I’ll take it from here, Jack,” Barry Tucker said, briskly. “The DA is going to dismiss the charges against Peter Gannon.” He dropped his notebook in his pocket. “And we’ll all get a few days off.”

  “Oh, I forgot. Your wife likes your crooked smile,” Forrest said. “Isn’t that what you told somebody the other day?”

  “It seems more like a year ago. The pity is that even if she could manage to prove she’s Alexander Gannon’s granddaughter, Dr. Farrell probably will never see a nickel of the Gannon money. Langdon, Hadley, and Pamela Gannon have been hemorrhaging it into their own pockets. The foundation money that went into some of Peter Gannon’s theatre projects may cause him trouble with the IRS.”

  Jack Stanton stood up. “Good job, all of you,” he said. Hopefully at least some of the money that Langdon and Hadley stole from the foundation will be recovered when they seize their assets. That means if Monica Farrell could actually prove she was the granddaughter, other properties like Alexander Gannon’s home in Southampton may be hers. But I gather at this point she can’t prove anything. Look-alike pictures don’t cut the mustard in court.”

  “Carl, does anyone know who Dr. Farrell’s grandmother actually was?” Dennis Flynn asked.

  “Dr. Hadley told us that she was Olivia Morrow’s older cousin, a young woman who later became a nun and is presently being considered for beatification by the Catholic Church. He thinks that the file with the proof of her relationship with Gannon was destroyed by Morrow before she died.”

  Stanton looked from one to the other of his detectives. “Obviously all of this has to be included in the detectives’ reports. Can you imagine the gossip Dr. Farrell will have to deal with when it comes out? As it is, she’s already survived two attempts on her life. If our guys hadn’t been covering her outside her apartment Tuesday night, she’d be in the river just like Scott Alterman.”

  Stanton took a long breath. “Okay, guys, now it’s time to do the paperwork and wrap this up.”

  79

  On Thursday afternoon, with enormous pride, Tony Garcia washed and polished his newly acquired Cadillac. With loving hands, he vacuumed the interior and wiped the dashboard and door handles with a damp cloth. Finally, he opened the trunk and it was then that he remembered that he had not yet looked to see if the file that Olivia Morrow had asked him to place in it was still there.

  With absolute shock, he had read that Dr. Hadley had admitted killing Ms. Morrow. The nicest lady you’d ever want to know, he thought. Fearful that he might lose out on the car, he’d phoned his brother-in-law and been reassured that as long as he kept the receipt for the cash he had handed Hadley, there shouldn’t be any problem getting the car transferred to his name.

  The trunk was deep and the lap robe that had been covering the manila file was almost as dark as the black interior. I wonder if that file is still there, Tony thought, as he bent down and leaned into the trunk. Dr. Hadley had said that the garage attendants took out any personal stuff that Ms. Morrow had in the car. But maybe they didn’t bother looking under the blanket.

  He lifted it up and it was there. The manila file. He pulled it out and held it in his hand, wondering what he should do with it. Maybe he should turn it over to the cops.

  He walked up the three flights to their apartment. Rosalie was out in the park with the baby. Tony left the file on the table, changed, went back downstairs, drove the car to the service station where his buddy let him park it cheap, then headed for the Waldorf where he was working at one of the black-tie affairs.

  When he got back home at one in the morning, Rosalie was sitting at the table, reading. Her face transfixed, she said, “Tony, this file belongs to Dr. Monica. It has so many letters from her grandmother to Ms. Morrow’s mother and proof of Dr. Monica’s grandparents. Dr. Monica’s grandmother was a nun. When you read the letters she wrote about giving up her own child and spending her life taking care of other children, you’ll want to cry.” She wiped her eyes. “Tony, these letters were written by a saint.”

  80

  On Friday afternoon, Monica and Ryan drove to Metuchen to give testimony in the cause of the beatification of Sister Catherine Mary Kurner. Monica had taken the day off and had hoped to simply have a quiet morning before Ryan picked her up.

  But when Tony Garcia learned from Nan that Monica would not be in the office, he rushed to her apartment. Still in her robe, she answered the door.

  “I won’t come in, Dr. Monica,” Tony said, “but I couldn’t wait another second to get this file to you. In fact, Rosie thought that I should bring it up to you at one o’clock this morning, if you can believe it.”

  “Nothing can be that urgent.” Monica smiled, as she took the file from him.

  “Dr. Monica, believe you me, it is urgent,” Tony said, simply. “You’ll understand when you read it.” With a quick smile, he was gone.

  Puzzled, Monica sat down at the table, poured a cup of coffee, and opened the file. She could see that it was composed mostly of letters, and a quick glance told her that the early ones had been written in the 1930s.

  Puzzled by why Tony had felt it was so important for her to read the file right away, she decided to start with the earliest letter. Then she saw the name on the letterhead: Alexander Gannon. The date was March 2, 1934.

  My darling Catherine,

  How can I possibly find the words to beg your forgiveness? There are none. The thought that you were leaving in the morning to enter the convent, the knowledge that all hope that you would change your mind had ended overwhelmed me with my need for you. I am so ashamed. That night I could not sleep knowing that I was losing you. Finally I got up and walked from the house to the cottage. I knew that the door was never locked and that Regina and Olivia would be asleep upstairs. I had no intention of coming in. I swear it. Then I simply wanted to be near you one more time and so I came into your room. You in your sweet innocence were sleeping. Oh, Catherine, forgive me. Forgive me. There will never be anyone in my life except you. Examining my conscience and my soul, I believe that it was my hope that if you were to become with child, you would be forced to marry me. Oh, Catherine, I beg your forgiveness. If that were to happen, I implore you to become my wife.

  Alex

  The next letter was from the Mother Superior
of Catherine’s convent.

  Dear Regina,

  I am returning the letter Alexander Gannon gave you to send to Catherine. She does not wish to read it, but I did tell her it contained his profound apology. Please instruct him never again to contact Catherine.

  Eight months later there was another letter from the Mother Superior.

  Dear Regina,

  This morning, in Dublin, at five A.M., your cousin Catherine gave birth to her son. The baby was immediately registered in the name of my nephew and his wife, Matthew and Anne Farrell. They have already sailed from Ireland with the infant. It took great courage for Catherine to give up her baby, but she has steadfastly maintained that she must follow the calling that she has always known was hers. She does not want Alexander Gannon to ever learn about the child because she fears he would want to raise him on his own. It was a difficult and long labor and it became necessary for the doctor to perform caesarean surgery. When she recovers her health, Catherine will return to the novitiate in Connecticut and resume her role as a postulant.

  Sister Catherine is my grandmother, Monica thought, stunned. Alexander Gannon is my grandfather. For the next two hours, she read and reread the letters. Most of them were from Catherine to Olivia’s mother, Regina. Some of them referred to her child.

  . . . Regina, there are times when my arms ache for the baby I gave up. And yet when I reach into a crib and pick up an abandoned little one, a child damaged in body or mind, I fill that need. Mother Superior placed my baby with a fine family. I know that. I can’t know any more than that. He belongs to the people who are now his parents and I am living the life that God intended for me.

  . . . I tell my young sisters that they must realize that when they enter the convent they do not surrender their human emotions, which I suspect countless people believe is the case. I tell them there will be times when they see the joy of a mother with a child that they may wish with all their hearts that they could know that joy. I tell them that there are times of loneliness when they may see a husband and wife, obviously content in their marriage, and know that they might have chosen that life. And then I remind them that there is no joy so deep as that of surrendering all human emotions to the God who granted them to us . . .

  All of Catherine’s letters were similar. Her eyes glistening with tears, Monica realized the struggles of the nun who had been her grandmother to open yet another hospital, to beg funds for urgently needed medical equipment.

  Dear Regina,

  Polio is rampant. It breaks the heart to see little ones in iron lungs, unable to breathe on their own, their limbs wasted.

  It was the call from Ryan that startled Monica into awareness of the time. “I’ll be about ten minutes late, love, there’s a lot of traffic,” he said.

  It was eleven fifteen. They were due to be in Metuchen at one o’clock to testify at the beatification hearing. Monica rushed to shower and dress but took the time to scan the letter from Alex Gannon to Catherine and the letter from the Mother Superior to Regina Morrow so she could keep electronic copies.

  When Ryan called again to say that he was waiting outside in the car, she said, “Ryan, let me drive. There’s something I want you to read.”

  Monsignors Kelly and Fell and Laura Shearing were waiting for them when they arrived, barely on time. Monica introduced them to Ryan, then said, “I have something very important to show you, but if you don’t mind I’d prefer to do it after we give our testimony.”

  “Of course,” Monsignor Kelly said.

  His voice firm and sure, under sacred oath, with quiet intensity Ryan testified that as a neurosurgeon he could find no medical explanation for Michael O’Keefe’s cancerous brain tumor to have disappeared. “Nor will anyone else find an explanation,” he said. “I only wish that there were more miracles granted to the agonized parents who are losing their children to cancer.”

  When Monica testified, she said, “I cannot understand why I was so resistant to the idea that the power of prayer was the cause of Michael’s return to health. I was a witness to the absolute act of faith of his mother when I told her he was terminally ill. It was arrogant of me to be so dismissive of her faith, especially since the proof of it is her eight-year-old healthy little boy.”

  It was only after she had completed answering their questions and Monsignor Kelly had thanked them for coming, that Monica laid the file marked CATHERINE on his desk. “I think I would prefer that you read this after I leave,” she said. “Then, if you wish, we can talk again. But if it is determined that Sister Catherine is proposed for beatification, I would like to be invited to the ceremony.”

  “Of course.” Monsignor Kelly stood up. “Dr. Jenner, perhaps you’d like to see a picture of Sister Catherine.”

  “Yes, I would.”

  “Dr. Farrell, I don’t think you saw this picture when you were here. It was taken when she was quite young, in her early thirties, I believe.” Monsignor Kelly reached into his desk and took out the photograph of a nun in traditional habit, smiling as she held two babies in her arms.

  Ryan looked from the picture to Monica. “Sister Catherine was a beautiful woman,” he said, as he handed it back.

  He and Monica did not speak until they were in the car. “After they read the file, they’ll take that picture out and look at it again,” he said. “Your resemblance to her is unmistakable, especially the smile.”

  Before he turned on the ignition, he said, “Alexander Gannon loved Catherine so much that he never looked at another woman. I understand how he felt. That is how much I love you.

  81

  One week later

  It feels a lot different than the last time I discharged Sally from the hospital, Monica thought, remembering Renée Carter’s impatient order to Kristina Johnson to hurry up and dress the baby because she was late for lunch.

  Today, she was releasing her into the welcoming arms of Susan Gannon, who had come to the hospital alone. “Peter is waiting for us at my apartment,” she explained. “He said he was afraid that if he met her for the first time here, he’d break down and cry.” As she nuzzled Sally’s cheek, Susan smiled and added, “Which is exactly what I expect him to do when I get this little girl home. He’s frantic to meet her. Kristina will start to work for me tomorrow morning. Peter and I both wanted Sally to ourselves today.”

  “I know what Peter has been through,” Monica said. “I hope everything goes well for him from now on.”

  “He’s going to have to face some tax issues but no criminal charges,” Susan said frankly. “He’ll weather them. It’s a big relief for all of us that Greg and the others may plead guilty. I’ll be very grateful if we don’t have to go through so many criminal trials.”

  “So will I,” Monica agreed fervently. “The last thing I want to do is to have to testify in court. It would especially sicken me to have to look at Dr. Hadley.”

  Susan hesitated, then said, “Monica, now that you have the proof that you are Alexander Gannon’s granddaughter, I hope they’ll be able to recover for you some of the money that is rightfully yours.”

  “We’ll see what happens,” Monica said quietly. “If they do, most of it will go toward the pediatric center we need here. I am thrilled to know my background, and it is a joy to discover that Sally is my second cousin. No wonder she’s always been so special to me. The great sadness is that three people died because of that money.”

  “You are going to come and see her?” Susan asked. “And I mean regularly, as family. I promise you’ll like Peter. He’s going to be around a lot, and remember he’s your cousin, too.”

  Monica reached out and took Sally from Susan’s arms. They walked down the corridor, then, with a final hug, she handed the baby back to Susan.

  “Bye-bye, Monny,” Sally called, as they got into the elevator, and the door closed behind them.

  She felt a hand on her arm. It was Ryan. “Don’t feel too bad. One of these days you’ll have your own,” he said.

  Her smile radiant, M
onica looked up at him.

  “I know,” she said. “I know.”

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