by Gayle Lynds
Now as he saw the priest's familiar face and watched his vigorous walk, he realized he'd grown to count on Father Michael's friendship as he'd counted on few others. He felt tears of gratitude well up in his eyes. Marguerite's murder washed over him in a cold river of sadness and bitter regret. For a brief moment he thought about his own death and what would happen then. He didn't want to end up in a black hole of nothingness or more likely, since he was Catholic, in hell. Marguerite wouldn't be there, and neither would his dear wife, Mary.
The rest home's doors whooshed open, and the friar strode in. "I am so sorry about your daughter's death. I came as soon as I heard. You knew I would, did you not, my son?"
The old man said firmly, "You bet your sweet ass I did."
11
9:30 AM, SATURDAY
KENNEDY INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT
The Concorde's ventilation system hummed, and the air smelled slightly dank, as if it'd been recirculated once too often. The flight from London had been mercifully short, and Julia—exhausted from crying—had dozed through most of it.
By the time the jet touched down at Kennedy, her brain was starting to reassert itself. The pain of her mother's death was still there, still throbbed, but it was dulling. She felt no peace about it, but it left her some space. She had to make plans, and she had to face what would happen at Arbor Knoll.
That realization had struck her when the sleek jet had stopped. The steward leaned over to inform her they'd halted out on the tarmac and a staircase was being rolled to the door. She was the only passenger being allowed off before the jet would be taken to the terminal.
"Two Secret Service agents are waiting for you." He helped her up. He sounded worried, as if Julia might be a gangster or an undercover assassin.
But she knew what she was to the Secret Service. She forced a smile. "It must be because of my uncle. He's running for president."
He led her to the open hatch. "How exciting! Which candidate is he?"
"Creighton Redmond."
Julia walked down the staircase, full of growing anger. The day was cold. The thin sunlight barely brushed her face with warmth. And she had to deal with her overbearing family, something she hadn't had to do much since she'd begun touring under her mother's management. She wasn't looking forward to it, and yet the power that came with being a Redmond could help her in her search for the killer.
As she stepped onto the tarmac, a man to her right spoke. "Please come with us, Ms. Austrian. I'm Agent Firestone. We'll take you to Arbor Knoll." He touched her hand, and she grasped his arm just above the elbow. He'd been instructed how to work with her blindness. Creighton thought of everything.
The agent made polite small talk as she got into the limousine, and she was polite in return. He and his partner were complete professionals. She was grateful for the security and comfort they were providing. And yet—
There was much to admire and enjoy about the Redmonds. They were the only family she had left, and she loved them. Her mother hadn't stayed close to her brothers because of the family code of subsuming the individual to the whole. When Julia was a child, she remembered bitter fights between Marguerite and her brothers, with Jonathan—Julia's father—caught like a yo-yo between them, or stalking around the fringes with a cold, outraged face. As a result, Marguerite soon distanced herself from her family, even from her father, and they in turn had backed off.
But not now. Already Creighton was taking charge. He was being kind, but if she allowed the precedent to stand, she risked losing herself in the Redmonds' lavish but suffocating hospitality, or to their control. She needed to use the Redmonds, but not let them use her. If she was right and her blindness originated from some trauma that had happened the night of her debut, they might be able to tell her what it'd been. With sight, she had a far better chance of finding her mother's killer. Again the pain of her abrupt blindness in the taxi overcame her. If she'd just been able to see. . .
As the limo sped northeast toward Oyster Bay, Julia fought back the pain. She found a cell phone in the backseat. She began to make calls. She was rich, and money could solve a lot of problems.
11 AM, SATURDAY
WESTCHESTER COUNTY, NEW YORK
The sun emerged from the dull sky, and wavering sunlight tried to warm the chill outdoor air. The nursing home grounds were gray with autumn, the grasses brown, the trees mostly bereft of leaves. The friar rolled Lyle Redmond in his wheelchair along one of the paths. They talked about Marguerite. The friar tried to comfort him. Lyle was filled with her presence. Bolts of pain at every bump of the chair were reminders of the cruelty of her death . . . and his responsibility for it.
His eyes moist, he started to direct the friar to his favorite spot beneath the old sycamore. Then he had a sudden thought: Maybe the tree had listening devices up in its branches. That might be how John Reilly had learned about the two packets he'd paid the orderly to send off.
"Take me there." Controlling his voice, he nodded at a different spot, beside the pond. There were no trees overhead, the nursing home was below the rise and out of sight, and no one was nearby to overhear. The water made a rhythmic lapping sound against the muddy shore.
Father Michael stopped the wheelchair near a granite boulder. A lone mallard duck swam across the glassy pond. The friar put on the chair's brakes and came around to sit on the boulder so he and the old man would be face to face. He'd been with Mother Church nearly forty years and was an astute observer of human nature. In some ways he knew Lyle Redmond better than Lyle could hope to know himself. With another of his flock, he'd have suggested they pray together, but Lyle wouldn't go for that yet.
Lyle sighed. "I've been wrong."
"I am a good listener," the priest said. "Perhaps it is time you told me everything." He had a faint German accent.
Lyle studied Father Michael's kind face. It was round, the jowls pronounced, and the bags under his eyes pale blue. He had a strong, aquiline nose and receding gray hair. There was strength in his features, Lyle decided, as if beneath the fleshiness were tempered steel. He liked that the priest wasn't some idiotic do-gooder with nothing else going for him.
He leaned forward and spoke, his voice low and confiding. "My partner, Dan Austrian, retired two decades ago with a half billion dollars. He'd decided he had enough dough and it was time to take his place in society. So he became a hot-shot philanthropist and an ambassador." He hesitated, feeling ashamed. "But I figured, screw all that. There's never enough money. So I kept working until I was worth forty times Dan's little nest egg. Then one day I realized I didn't feel so good. You know, the gas had gone out of the old engine."
The priest understood. "The aches and pains of aging."
Lyle nodded his white head. "So I looked around and wondered what I had for sixty years of nonstop work. Three answers: A fortune greater than Midas ever imagined, three sons who hated my guts—" he paused, swallowed, and admitted the truth "—and a load of guilt."
The friar looked into the older man's watery eyes, envisioning the man he was trying to be. Never before had Lyle revealed so much. "That is why you tried to start your foundation?"
"Yeah." He closed his eyes. Maybe it was the past year here in this nursing home hellhole. Probably it was Marguerite's terrible murder and his hand in it. He didn't know exactly why, but when he opened his eyes and spoke, it was a hard, secret truth: "I tried to buy peace in the usual way—charity. I'd watched the Ted Turners and Bill Gateses of the world do it, so I decided, why not? Donate gifts to humanity, the bigger the better. That's my style. Just like Ted and Bill, I never planned to give it all away, despite what my boys feared. I wasn't that dumb. With my foundation, I figured if I put half of what I had into it, I'd have plenty to give away and make up for what I'd bled from a lot of people but without seriously hurting what was left of my personal fortune."
"Which meant your money would continue to grow."
Lyle nodded morosely. "I'd still be rich as sin, but it seemed like a surefire way to erase my guilt, too
. Then I found out something I never expected. I actually liked helping people. I kept looking around, and all of a sudden, all I saw was need. I tried to put the foundation together real fast so I could do some good. But I was so damn busy doing it I forgot a fundamental in war and business. I didn't take care of my back." He sneered. "My boys were scared they were going to lose their 'inheritances.' So they pulled off a coup d'etat and got a court to declare I was too incompetent to take care of myself. Boom. There went my money. My houses. My cars and family and—" His voice broke.
"And then they sent you here. So they felt safe."
The old man was quiet. "Yeah. They're still afraid of me."
Father Michael studied him, thinking about his own past. He hadn't been granted the grace of easy faith. A decade ago, despite his Franciscan vows, he'd had a crisis of faith that had almost destroyed him. He'd had murder in his heart. But through God's mercy, the patience of his fellow priests, and tireless prayer he'd emerged fervently believing again there was a God, and He was just and good. Lyle Redmond didn't know it, but they had a lot in common.
That's how he'd come to rededicate himself to the ways of Saint Francis of Assisi, for whom there was nothing more important than the salvation of souls. After all, Jesus had allowed himself to die upon the cross for the love of ail souls, good and evil. So now Father Michael sought out the worst and most recalcitrant sinners. With the kindness of Ruth and me patient determination of Job, he worked to save them and to quiet the doubt that he was worthy of so vital a task. Lyle Redmond had been a vile sinner, one of the worst the priest had come across. That's why he'd become Lyle's patient visitor.
Smiling, he leaned forward. "It is good to hear these truths from you. But it seems to me there is a reason you are telling me this now."
"You're right." Lyle's gaze was surprisingly cagey. "Let's talk about hell." Just as he was an old-fashioned Catholic, Father Michael was an old-fashioned priest. For that reason, Lyle figured he'd give him the straight words he vaguely recalled from his childhood. "I remember the catechism. I remember 'Life is sweet, and death is bitter.' So remind me what happens when we die." There had to be some meaning to it all.
Father Michael studied the old man, the wreath of white hair, the broad, bony face with the tissue-paper skin. When they'd first left the rest home, the old man's body had seemed sunken beneath the heavy coat and lap robe, but now there was a rustling of strength about him. His hands lay naked on the robe, flexing as if awakening from a long sleep. The once-large shoulders seemed to be regaining their shape, and the body seemed to pulse with new muscle.
The friar was puzzled, but he wasn't going to miss the chance. "Why is death so horrible? Because the soul must leave the body. The Church teaches that the body and the soul were created for one another, so entwined that separating them seems absurd, impossible. And then, the body knows as soon as the soul departs it will molder into dust, while the soul, if it has not been brave enough to seek God's grace and use the means He offers to save our souls . . . well, that soul will go to hell."
The old man listened eagerly. One of the best things about the Catholic Church was it gave definitive answers. Black and white. None of that New Age mealymouthed junk. "What happens to a soul that goes to hell? What's it like?"
"In Matthew twenty-five, verse forty-one, Jesus tells the wicked, 'Depart from Me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, which was prepared for the devil and his angels.'" Father Michael's voice lowered with intimacy. He loved the struggle toward salvation because the goal was pure and the reward eternal. "In her revelations, Saint Bridget says, 'The heat of hellfire is so great that if the whole world were wrapped in flames, the heat of the conflagration would be as nothing in comparison with it.' And then in Mark nine, verse forty-three, Jesus tells us, 'If thy hand scandalize thee, cut it off; it is better for thee to enter into life, maimed, than having two hands, to go into hell, into the fire that cannot be quenched.'"
The old man nodded. He leaned over, his face propped on his palms, as if concentrating. " 'Set thy house in order for thou shalt die.'"
"Isaiah thirty-eight, verse one," the friar murmured. "Humility is the only way to acquire peace, my son. You are suffering because your soul is in danger of spending all eternity in hell."
The old man raised his head. "Tell me what I have to do to get into heaven."
"Do you really want to go to heaven?"
The old man admitted truthfully, "I just don't want to go to hell. Scares the crap out of me." He looked up. "And Mary and Marguerite won't be there."
The friar repressed a smile. "I suppose even God would take that as a step in the right direction. But I do not know whether you are courageous enough to do what God demands for an eternity of bliss and light with the angels."
The old man seemed to sit up straighter, and again the friar had the impression he was stronger than he let people think.
Lyle growled, "I've fought the tyrants of Wall Street, the pissant emperors in the White House, and the stupidest of New York City's bureaucrats, and I've won. If I make up my mind to do this, you goddamn well better believe I'll do it!"
"You're going to have to stop swearing."
The old man blinked. "I'll try. What else?"
"Repent your sins. Confess sincerely. Mend your ways. Fix everything you can from the past. And live so purely that if in the next minute you die, you will be able to meet your Creator with a clean spirit. You do not want to leave any sins unremedied."
The old man swallowed. "You ask one hell of a lot." He realized he'd sworn again. "Sorry."
Father Michael sat back. "It is your decision. Do you wish to hear of heaven?"
"I'm still chewing on hell." The old man stared unseeing across the nursing home's winter-dead grounds. The cold day didn't seem to make his bones ache as it usually did. He looked around. He saw no one. An idea was beginning to percolate in his brain. "Help me." He pushed himself up.
Surprised, the priest grabbed his arm and supported him.
"I was walking really well again last week before they started shooting me up with their damn. . . sorry. . . drugs. Let's see how I am now." He took a tentative step. He felt weak, but he persevered. After a few steps he was able to move ahead slowly on his own. "Come on, Father Michael. Let's go for a walk."
The friar at his side, Lyle continued along the flat path above the pond. His steps gained surety. "I understand confession and repenting and making amends. But what guarantees do I get I still won't go to hell?"
"This is no transaction." The friar smiled. "The Almighty does not do business or give warranties. None of us . . . not even the pope . . . can be certain whether we have done enough penance to have pardon. But God is also generous and merciful, and He will examine your heart with love. Speak to Him in your prayers."
"I don't remember how," the old man admitted. For a moment, the sweet memory of how he used to be known as the Great Lyle Redmond, the Midas of Real Estate, the Developer of the Century came over him. Did the Great Lyle Redmond bow his head and mumble memorized litanies to a god he couldn't see, in whom he hadn't believed for more than a half century?
Father Michael said, "First you must remove the two obstacles to prayer from your mind—sin and worry. Then you must be willing to give the time. Be patient with yourself. It is a dialogue, but it must also be a prayer for God's plans to come about. If you like them, you will rejoice. If you do not, you will find comfort."
Lyle glanced at the friar. There was something in the friar's tone. "You've had your own doubts, haven't you?"
The friar's jowly face grew sad. "Yes. It was a black time for me. I suffered. I had hatred in my heart, and I lost God. He was always there, but I thought I could not find him. It is true many of us must wander in the wilderness until we make our own paths." He smiled at a squirrel that bounded across the lawn to a distant pine tree. The animal's brown coat was already thickened for winter. The fur glowed rich and silky in the wan sunlight. "We are all God's creatures, a celebration
of Him and His goodness, and I take enormous joy from that."
Since his sons had destroyed his first plan of escape, Lyle had been struggling to figure out another way. It seemed more crucial than ever now that Marguerite was dead. And there was Creighton, too. Creighton might become the next president. Lyle couldn't let that happen.
The future was careening out of control. It was high time he faced his responsibilities. Besides, the flame-spitting fires of hell were crackling too damn near.
Thinking, he continued to study the friar as they strolled along. Maybe the priest was the answer to a lot of things. A plan began to take shape in his wily brain.
Father Michael turned in his brown habit, the long skirt swirling around his ankles. His gray eyebrows knitted. "Is there something else you want to tell me, my son? Perhaps you are ready to make your confession?"
That's when Lyle Redmond decided. "Not yet, Father Michael. But soon. First we've got something else we're going to do. You and me. I know you want to help save my soul, so I'm going to take you into my confidence." His pale, wrinkled face grew hard. "I want to break out of this goddamned prison. And you're going to help me."
12
11:05 AM, SATURDAY
OYSTER BAY, NEW YORK
In a curve of the forest out of sight of Arbor Knoll's mansion and other buildings stood the redwood-sided retreat Lyle Redmond had built for himself and as a symbol of the family. Before moving in his wife and young children, Lyle had ordered the simple wooden building erected. In the ensuing years he used the single-room retreat not only for work and contemplation but as a constant reminder to his family and the world of his proud roots as a poor boy with humble beginnings in Hell's Kitchen. It was on the steps of this structure that Creighton had announced his candidacy for U. S. president
Walking toward it, Creighton glanced absently around. Winter birds called, and from the distance came the muted roar of the churning bay. But all he was aware of was there were no rain clouds in sight. For two days a storm had hovered over the North Shore, leaving the salt air frosty and disturbed and the sea shaking. But this Saturday morning the sky was clear and sunny, its color a stony blue.