The Melody Lingers On
Page 21
Anne shook her head and moved closer to her husband on the sofa. “Oh yes, I do take my heart medicine but some days I’m just not feeling quite right and this is one of them.”
She looked up at him. “Parker, let me look at you as you are. That must be a wig. Take it off. And please don’t turn yourself in until tomorrow. Give me one last night with you.”
She leaned her head on his shoulder. “I love you,” she said. “I am so desperately sorry for the people whose money you took but it can’t be all gone. Can you just leave it where it will be found and can we hide somewhere? I just want to be with you for the rest of my life.”
Parker Bennett had a moment of deep regret for the life he had chosen.
But then he pictured himself in his new villa in Switzerland and the life of luxury he’d be heading for once he got on that plane tonight.
73
The dozen members of the FBI surveillance team, now surrounding the town house, were listening to the tense reports that Jonathan Pierce was giving them.
Jon watched as Lane and Eric ran into the town house where Parker Bennett was waiting. Jon knew the situation might be explosive and told Rudy Schell that. But Rudy answered sharply, “We don’t know yet if both of them were involved. We have to hear what they say to each other.”
“And there’s an old black Ford sedan parked down the block with an older white male driver inside. It looks as though he might have been following them. It may be the same car you saw following Anne Bennett. We’re watching it.”
74
When Lane and Eric rushed into the living room Anne was slumped on the couch, her eyes closed. Lane dropped to her knees beside Anne, reached for her wrist, then cried, “Eric, I can’t get a pulse. She’s not breathing. Call nine-one-one.” But even as she spoke, she knew that Anne was dead.
Eric pulled out his cell phone. Then a voice from the doorway said, “That can wait. Hello, Eric.”
Lane dropped her fingers from Anne Bennett’s wrist and stood up. She had seen so many pictures of Parker Bennett in the newspapers. There was no mistaking the man. It was Parker Bennett. And then what she heard shocked her.
“You have the number, Eric. Give it to me.”
The number that was taped in the music box! Lane thought. What does it mean?
“I don’t think that’s possible, Dad,” Eric said, his voice smooth and unemotional. “Now, for Mother’s sake, get out of here. I don’t want you to be arrested. You must have a fallback plan, whatever it is, to hide somewhere. Let that be the end of it.”
You can’t do that, Eric, Lane thought. You have got to turn him in.
Then in horror she watched as Parker Bennett took his hand out of his pocket and pointed a pistol at his son.
“What do you think you’re doing, Dad?” Eric Bennett asked as he looked at the gun.
“What I’m doing is telling you to throw your wallet over to me. Your mother said that you put the number I want in it.”
When Eric did not reply, Parker said, “Eric, I know what you are thinking, but I didn’t cheat you. I was planning to share the money with you.”
“How do you define cheating?” Eric asked. “You took off without telling me. I did everything you asked me to do for thirteen years. You would have been caught immediately if I hadn’t put together and run the system that generated the client statements. You took almost all of the money we were supposed to share out of our account. The little that was left there I didn’t dare touch. They were watching me too closely.”
“The wallet, Eric,” Parker shouted.
Eric pulled his wallet from his pocket and flipped it toward Parker. As his father reached to catch it, Eric hurled himself across the room and knocked him down.
The pistol went off twice, wounding Eric in his right arm and shoulder. As Lane watched unbelieving, Eric grabbed his father’s hand and turned the gun on him. Parker Bennett screamed, “Don’t, don’t, please.”
Eric said, “Bye, bye, Daddy,” and pulled the trigger.
The bullet went squarely between Parker Bennett’s eyes. His blood mingled with Eric’s as he gasped and died.
Eric struggled to his feet, stared at Lane, and smiled. It was as though his face had been transformed. His eyes were narrow dark pits. His smile was a sneer. Supporting his wounded right arm with his left hand, he pointed the gun at Lane.
“I’m sorry, Lane. I was starting to like you. But just to let you know, I’m glad that swine shot me. Now everyone will believe I am innocent and I will have the five billion dollars I earned over thirteen years. My father’s fingerprints as well as mine are on the gun. They’ll believe me when I tell them he shot me, he killed you, and then himself.”
His finger began to tighten on the trigger.
“I promise I’ll visit Katie. I’ll dry her tears. Maybe she’ll make more cookies for me.”
75
The instant he heard the sound of gunfire, Jonathan Pierce was out the door, running across the driveway and onto the steps of Anne Bennett’s home, knowing it might already be too late to save Lane. He shot the lock open and, with a thrust of his shoulder, broke into the town house and ran into the living room. From the street, surveillance agents were pouring from their cars and were steps behind him.
76
Lane thought, Katie, Katie, I can’t leave her.
Instinctively, she threw herself to the side and then felt a searing pain in her forehead. Blood began pouring down her face. She looked around wildly.
Then, before Eric could fire again, she grabbed the music box off the cocktail table and threw it at him, hitting him in the wounded shoulder.
With a cry of pain, he dropped the pistol. Snarling, he reached down, grabbed it, stood up, and aimed again at Lane.
As he ran toward the living room Jonathan was terrified that it might be too late. Eric was pointing the gun at Lane. Fearing he might hit Lane, Jon could not fire. He hurled himself across the room and collided with Eric, knocking him to the floor. In a final irony the bullet intended for Lane came to rest inside the shattered music box.
Rudy was at the head of the other FBI agents who were pouring into the room. As they surrounded Eric Bennett, Jon looked heartsick as Lane crumpled to the floor.
“Lane, Lane,” he shouted as he dropped to his knees beside her and put his arms around her.
Rudy Schell was alongside him. As he wiped the blood from Lane’s forehead, Jon said numbly, “I don’t think the bullet went through her head. I saw it. I think she moved just in time.”
Lane could hear his voice as if from a long distance away. Dear God, I am not going to die, she thought. I am not going to die. Profound gratitude was the last emotion she felt before she woke up in the hospital and looked into the eyes of the man who saved her life.
77
Ranger heard the shots and wondered if they were real or if he was hearing them in his head. He was seated in the car staring numbly ahead. The package that he planned to use as an excuse for someone to let him into Anne Bennett’s town house was on the seat beside him. The pistol was on the floor in front of the passenger seat.
He heard a shout: “Put your hands on top of the steering wheel. Now come out with your hands up.”
Ranger barely heard the voice because he was hearing another voice in his head. As the doors of the car were yanked open, he looked up. “It’s all right,” he said. “Judy wouldn’t let me kill them.”
78
On Friday morning Len Stacey made the call to the FBI. When he was connected, he cleared his throat and said, “I may have some very valuable information for you about Parker Bennett. If I’m right, I can tell you where he’s been living, where he’s going, and his cell phone number.
“I understand there is a two-million-dollar reward if my information leads to his capture.”
“I’m afraid you’re twenty-four hours too late, Mr. Stacey,” he was told. “Read today’s newspapers. Parker Bennett died last night.”
“You mean I was ri
ght? You mean, he was using the name George Hawkins?”
“Yes, he was. Thank you, Mr. Stacey. Good-bye.”
Len heard the click. I was right, he thought. And if I’d called the minute I suspected him, I would have the two-million-dollar reward.
He decided there was no point in telling his wife. She had told him never to talk about Parker Bennett/George Hawkins again.
79
A week later they were gathered in Rudy Schell’s office. Lane, Glady, Eleanor and Frank Becker, Sean Cunningham, and Jonathan Pierce.
“I want to inform you of all the further developments in the case,” Rudy said.
“Mr. and Mrs. Becker, let’s start with you. Eric Bennett has said that in no way were you involved in the fraud. He has admitted that he and his father joked about how naïve you were and that the warmth and hospitality you showed to potential clients was a great help in winning their trust. He confirmed that you were absolutely unaware of any impropriety at the Parker Bennett Investment Fund. I can assure you that with the information we have given to the federal prosecutor, the charges against you will be dropped.”
Eleanor gasped and turned to her husband. “Frank, I’m not going to prison. I’m not going to prison.”
Rudy turned to Glady. “Ms. Harper, I want to tell you how grateful we are for your cooperation.”
“Well, have you been able to nail the countess? We all know she was in on it,” Glady asked in her usual tart voice.
“We are not planning to charge the countess with any wrongdoing,” Rudy said smoothly. “I can’t say anything more than that.”
“That’s too bad. I’d have sworn she was in cahoots with him, and with all the work we did on that apartment, leave it to her to move out just when it’s finished.”
“What will happen to Ranger?” Sean Cunningham asked quietly.
“He agreed to get inpatient psychiatric care,” Rudy said.
“Will he be charged with carrying an unlicensed pistol?”
“Probably, but I believe, considering all the circumstances, he will only get probation.”
Lane had been listening quietly. In this past week the wound on her forehead had faded even though the doctor told her there would always be a small scar there. In the two days she had spent in the hospital, her mother and Dwight had flown up to be with her and take care of Katie. When Dwight had tried to phone her during the dinner with Eric, he had been going to tell her that his cousin Regina Crowley Fitzsimmons had released him from the vow he made to her mother that he would never tell anyone what Eric had done to her.
Everyone told me I was wrong about Eric, Lane thought. How could I have been so stubborn? The old adage that “there are none so blind as those who will not see” kept recurring in her mind.
Now Rudy Schell turned to her. “Ms. Harmon, you were the eyewitness to what happened in Anne Bennett’s home. We might have been able to arrest Eric Bennett but we would not have been able to prove that he murdered his father if you had not been there. We are confident he will serve a long term for fraud, and I can guarantee that it will be a longer term when he is also convicted of murder and attempting to murder you. He will undoubtedly spend the rest of his life in prison.
“And now the final good news—while Parker Bennett was cheating his clients, he was also making money legitimately. He did use some of his clients’ money to support his lifestyle, but the great bulk of the five billion dollars has been traced and will be returned to his victims.”
Jon Pierce had been sitting there quietly. Now Rudy said, “As you may know, Ms. Harmon, Agent Pierce was the one who saved your life.”
Lane smiled. “I am aware of that,” she said. “And all I could think of at that last moment was how terrible it would be for my daughter if I were to die.”
She smiled at Jonathan, who returned the smile. Fragments of memory had come back. He had ridden with her in the back of the ambulance. His had been the first face she saw when she woke up in the hospital. She knew now that he had phoned her home and asked Mrs. Potters to stay overnight with Katie. He had contacted her mother and Dwight and told them what had happened. They had taken the next plane to New York.
When he told her his real name was Jon Pierce, not Tony Russo, she had joked that in her mind he would always be Tony. He had told her that Anthony was his middle name and some of his friends called him Tony.
He had visited her the two days she was in the hospital and he insisted that he drive her home.
When she asked him how she could ever thank him, his reply had been, “How about dinner on Saturday night?”
She was really looking forward to it.
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This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2015 by Mary Higgins Clark
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