So intense, so pragmatic. Cal the horsetrader; give a little to get a little. That always works with constituents and donors. He doesn’t understand he’s not offering me the right deal.
It’s not my mother I want back. It’s my father.
Chapter 52
I open the door of the apartment and walk out. No good-bye, no slam—I’m done with drama.
On the elevator ride down I plan what to do first. Call Coughlin, the New York Times, the hospital? Everything will have to wait until I get home to my landline.
On the lobby level the door slides open and a tall man in a stocking cap and a canvas coat faces me.
Figuring he intends to go up, I warn him, “This is going down to the parking garage.”
He nods and steps in. The door slides shut and we’re alone together.
I feel my heart rate quicken. This is ridiculous—I have to get over my fear of elevators. Keeping my eyes focused forward, I edge away from my fellow passenger. Silently, we descend two more levels. When the door opens on P1, he stands aside to let me exit first.
Whew! Gripping my keys in my coat pocket, I set off toward my car. My footsteps echo in the empty, cavernous space. I don’t notice another car. I wonder what that guy—
A footstep. A swish of air. The cold grit of concrete against my cheek. I’m down so fast I don’t have time to utter a sound. There’s a knee in my back and fingers laced through my hair. He yanks my head back to slam it into the concrete.
I manage to get my arms up to block the impact. He shifts his grip for better leverage. I twist around to look at him.
He knocks me back down. Now we’re face-to-face as he puts his hands around my neck.
The face is familiar, yet strange. The head is bald, the teeth are crooked, the eyes are brown.
But the lips, the chin, the cheekbones are ones I know well. They belong to Spencer Finneran.
My eyes widen and he grins.
“Good disguise, huh? I never wanted to be one of those politicians whose fame puts him in a bubble. I use this to get out among the people, hear what they really think. Amazing how when you change your most distinguishing characteristics, no one recognizes you.”
His hands tighten. I stare straight into his creepy, brown contact lens-shrouded eyes. It takes a long time to strangle someone to death. I’m not going to make it easy for him.
“Is this how you killed my mother?” I whisper.
The pressure increases. He shakes his head. “Shut up, Audrey.”
Shut up. That’s what Cal wanted me to do, but I wouldn’t agree. Cal. He set me up for this. I should have known he wouldn’t let me walk away and destroy everything the two of them have worked for.
Starbursts of white light explode before my eyes. Spencer’s BlackBerry chirps the arrival of a text. I stop struggling, shut my eyes, and go limp.
The pressure lessens. It’s enough. Rage propels me out of Spencer’s grasp. Keys in hand, I slash at Spencer’s eye. He screams and touches the damage. His hand comes away bloody. Through it all, his phone keeps chirping.
I’m up on my feet and racing for my car. Almost there. Then I feel my leg yanked out from under me. I’m airborne, my head bouncing off a concrete column. Dazed, I can’t fight back when Spencer gets his hands around my neck again. He won’t fall for the going limp trick a second time. Game over.
The exploding lights appear again…fade to gray…black is next…
“Stop!”
Spencer flinches and oxygen rushes back into my lungs. Another man appears above us.
“Jesus Christ, Spencer, what are you doing? You said you wanted to talk to her. You can’t kill her!”
Spencer looks up at Cal. “You had your chance. You told me you could make her listen. Clearly, you were wrong.” Spencer’s hands resume their work. “This will look like Dylan’s drug-dealing friends did it. Get out of here if you’re too squeamish to watch.”
Cal pulls Spencer off me. They stagger, grappling for the upper hand. Cal is younger but Spencer is taller. Neither one is a street fighter. Cal breaks away and takes a swing, but lands only a glancing blow to Spencer’s shoulder. I struggle to push myself to my feet. Instinctively, I reach for my phone, but it’s lying shattered upstairs.
“Get in the car, Audrey,” Cal yells. “Go for help.”
Just then, Spencer delivers a punch to Cal’s head and he reels. I scream and stumble toward them.
Cal regains his footing. “Go, Audrey!”
He’s right. I’m too weak to be of any use. The car is the best solution. As I fall into the driver’s seat and start the engine, I hear a terrible scream. Looking around, I see Cal slump down along the length of a column. A bright blossom of blood marks the spot where Spencer slammed Cal’s head against the concrete.
Even after all that’s happened, my instinct is to run to him, comfort him.
Then, in my headlights, I see Spencer Finneran sprinting up the exit ramp. In a moment he’ll be out on the street, out of his disguise, out from everything he’s done to Cal…my mother…my father…me.
I accelerate.
Chapter 53
Eight hours after Spencer Finneran is admitted to Palmyrton Memorial Hospital for trauma surgery, my father is released, the overdose of medications flushed from his system. The police are searching for a newly hired Manor View aide who stopped coming to work after my father was poisoned. Maybe Spencer promised her a green card for her husband or a civil service job for her son.
We are sitting together in the solarium at Manor View, preparing to solve the biggest problem of our lives. The Hodge Conjecture and the Reimann Hypothesis pale in comparison to the complexity of the Nealon Quagmire. Sharpened pencils with good erasers and a high-end graphing calculator won’t help us here. This is mental math gone wild.
I speak calmly. “Tell me again exactly what you remember about that night.”
His voice is steady even though his speech is still a little slurred. His eyes never blink. “When I ga home aroun’ nine, your mutha was already dead.”
“Who was there?”
“Spencer in the driveway, crying. You asleep in the fron’ seat of the car. Charlotte under it. ”
“Did you understand right away what had happened?”
Dad shakes his head. “Too much to absorb. Charlotte dead. Spencer there. The snow, so much snow.”
“Who said that I must’ve put the car in gear?”
“Spencer. He foun’ the crush doll carriage after I arrived. Saw how you were slumped over the gear shift.”
“And you believed him?”
Dad nods. “Spencer so distraught. He loved your mutha too… I thought . And, and…he had been my friend.”
Betrayed. I know how that feels. I touch his hand lightly. He doesn’t pull away. “Look.” I hand him the letter. “Have you ever seen this?”
I watch his face crumple as he reads it. Thirty years later the shock and pain are still raw. My father’s no Robert De Niro—this is the first time he’s read that letter.
“My mother meant to leave me behind, Dad. She took off while I was asleep in my bed. I was never in the car with her.”
Our eyes meet. “My God,” he whispers.
For thirty years my father has resented me for what he thought I did that night. Now I’ve proved my innocence. What should I be feeling here—relief? Triumph? Anger? I try each emotion on and reject it. Instead, I’m stunned to discover a little flicker of sympathy. My father’s response to my three year old self was totally unjust, totally irrational. For the first time in our lives, he seems fully human to me.
Not that we’re about to throw our arms around each other in an orgy of tears and apologies. We are Nealons, after all.
When I speak again, my voice is steady. “Did you ever see her neck?”
“No, wearing a scarf.” He looks at me. “Car didna kill her?’
I shake my head. “Strangled, I think. Tell me what happened next.”
“Spencer and I argued,
but worked ou’ a plan. What to do with the car. Putting toys he bought for his kids in the trunk. What to do with body.” Dad stares at the hospital ID bracelet still on his wrist as if he wouldn’t know who he was if it weren’t printed right there.
“Where was I?”
“I carried you in house. Put you in bed. I hadda leave you alone for a while, when I took car to the lake with Spencer. Didna’ like it, but no other way. You slept righ’ through.”
“And Spencer took care of the rest,” I say. “ Drove to the shore. Put Charlotte’s body in his boat and took her out to sea. But when it came time to throw her in the water, he slipped her ring off. Wanted that one little memento.”
“Spencer tol’ me wait ‘til mornin’ to call police. By then, the body would be in ocean and he back home.”
I get up and pace around the overheated room. A huge geranium drips brilliant red petals on the floor. Outside, the world is black and gray and brown. “But what about the letter? Why did he save that? The ring might be a memento, but the letter was written to another man. It incriminated him. Why wouldn’t he have destroyed it?”
Dad shakes his head.
I experience a moment of great clarity, as I do when I can see five moves ahead to how I’m going to win a chess game. I look at my father.
“I remember the cops being there when I woke up on Christmas morning. What time was that, Dad?”
He shrugs. “Eight or nine.”
“Do the math, Dad,” I say softly. “I slept more than twelve hours straight. I slept alone in the car. I slept when you carried me through the snowstorm into the house. Slept while you and Spencer argued about your plan. Slept when you left me to dump the car. Slept long past the time most little kids are up to see what Santa has brought.”
“Drugged.” Dad breathes the word out. “I remember you had an empty sippy cup in your hand. You loved juice. Spencer must’ve given you somethin’ before I go’ there.”
I hold up my hand. “Not Spencer. Anne.” Anne with her handy Benadryl for crying babies. Good mother Anne, ever ready with cups of juice and bags of snacks. “Cal told me Spencer helped you cover up my mother’s murder to spare Anne from knowing about the affair. But that can’t be true. She must’ve known right from the start. Spencer was out all night long on Christmas Eve getting rid of the body. How could he possibly have explained that to the mother of his children? Anne knew. Anne knew because Mom must’ve called and told her she was pregnant with Spencer’s child. She was tired of waiting. She jump-started the action.”
Dad sighs and nods. “Tha’ was your mutha.”
I take the letter out of Dad’s lap. “Maybe that’s why she said, ‘I’m not good at keeping secrets.’ After all, you already knew about the affair. Anne was the one who truly hated Charlotte. And I know for a fact she’s strong enough, and determined enough, to kill. So as mom was running off to meet Spencer, Anne intercepted her in the driveway and strangled her. Then Anne must’ve realized she couldn’t get rid of the body herself. She needed to call her husband for help.
“Spencer arrived and together they ran over my mother’s body with our car. With the hedge along the driveway and the snow coming down so thick, the neighbors wouldn’t have been able to see a thing.”
Dad clenches the arms of his chair. “The crush doll carriage… perfec’ prop. Charla’ really did run over tha’.”
I slept through this night thirty years ago, but today I see it with stunning clarity. “Then Anne came in the house to get me. Mom’s letter to you was probably right on the kitchen table. She took it, but why did she keep it?” I feel I’m so close—that the answer is there for the taking.
“I thin’ I unnerstan’,” Dad says. “Anne very proud. Didn’ wanna admit mistakes to her fatha. No’ wanna risk Spencer leavin’ her again. Letter was insurance.”
I nod. Dad and I are on to something here. Collaborators, not adversaries for once. “She kept the letter—and the ring as well-- to hold over Spencer’s head. We’ll never know, but it must’ve been Anne who gave the stuff to Agnes for safekeeping—she would have been closer to the nanny than her husband.”
“Risky.”
“Not so much.” I slide my chair closer to his and hold out the letter so we can both see it. “It starts ‘My Darling’ and it’s signed ‘C’. If Agnes had ever read it, which I don’t think she did, she wouldn’t have understood what she had. And then, somewhere along the line, Anne must’ve felt she no longer needed her insurance policy. She probably told Agnes to get rid of it. But by that time, the poor old soul couldn’t get up into her attic to do Anne’s bidding.” I give a bitter little laugh as I recall how Anne was able to control her household help with a nod of her head or a lift of her eyebrow. It probably never occurred to her that Agnes wouldn’t obey her.
I drop the letter in my father’s lap. “This only had meaning for Spencer, Anne and you.”
“An’ you.”
“Yeah, and me. If anyone else had found that trunk, none of this would’ve happened.” I nudge my father’s leg. “Remember when you finally accepted I was going into the estate sale business, you told me not to choose a silly name like Another Man’s Treasure. If I had named my company “Nealon’s Estate Sales” maybe Spencer and Anne would’ve encouraged Cal to choose a different firm. Like in chess, Dad. The opening gambit determines the whole course of the game. ”
He sits there, rigid as the Sphinx. When he speaks again, his voice is tinged with awe. “What a marriage the Finnerans had!”
“Amazing, for sure. The murder seemed to make it stronger. Spencer saved Anne from a life in prison. Anne saved Spencer from a messy, career-ending affair. You keep my secret, I’ll keep yours—that was the basis of their union.”
I twist to face my father head-on. “Why were you so determined to keep it from me that Spencer was my mother’s lover.”
“Dangerous for you to know before election. You would confron’ him even if I tol’ you no’ to.”
I narrow my eyes. Would I have? “What makes you say that?”
“You nevuh listen ta me.”
“You always think you’re right!”
There it is, every parent and child’s lament. I wouldn’t listen when he wanted me to stay in the Chess Club in high school, wouldn’t listen when I chose UVA over Princeton, wouldn’t listen when I started Another Man’s Treasure, wouldn’t listen when I hired Ty. Maybe he’s right. Maybe I wouldn’t have listened. But he could’ve tried. Instead, he did what he thought was best, always convinced he was right.
We glare at each other for a moment. Then I stretch back in my chair and gaze up at the ceiling. “Anne must’ve been stunned when Spencer told her about the trunk. I bet it was Anne who stole the key to my condo from your house and went through the trunk looking for that letter. I wonder—”
Dad waits for me to go on. When I don’t, his expression shifts. Maybe he’s noticed the tears in my eyes. He reaches for me, but I pretend I don’t see and fold my arms across my chest.
“I wonder which of them persuaded Cal—” The tears are flowing now.
“Don’ torture yourself, Audrey,” my father says.
Oh, but I will. I can’t stop thinking about how they ensnared him, controlled him, engendered such loyalty.
Cal lost his soul trying to save the Finnerans.
He lost his life saving me.
Chapter 54
“So, what are you doing for Thanksgiving,” I ask Coughlin. We’re walking through Jockey Hollow Park with Ethel on her long, retractable leash so she can have the illusion that she’s free to chase wildlife.
He sighs and rolls his eyes. “Going to my Cousin Brendan’s house.”
“You don’t sound too happy about it. I thought you were really into the big family get-togethers.”
“I used to love Thanksgiving. It was my favorite holiday until Brendan and Adrienne—oh, excuse me Ah-dree-enn—hijacked it. We used to rotate between four of my aunts’ houses on Thanksgiving. Fifty people cr
ammed into a little cape cod or split, folding tables stretched from the dining room through to the sun porch. All the men gathered around a Motorola TV in the rec room to watch the game. A thirty pound Butterball, sweet potatoes with marshmallows and canned green beans with the dried onions on top. It was fun, know what I mean? Then Brendan hit it rich trading derivatives or credit default swaps or whatever the fuck he does—sorry. He bought this house with a great room and a media center”—Coughlin makes air quotes when he says these words— and Adrienne has dinner catered by some freakin’ frog restaurant. Last year when Aunt Gert brought a big casserole of her sweet potatoes, Adrienne wouldn’t even put them on the table.”
“She sounds awful.” I keep my eyes trained on Ethel, who’s doing her best to intimidate a chipmunk chattering at her from just beyond the leash’s reach. “But at least you’re all together.”
“A turkey on rye from Sol’s sounds like a good alternative to me. Maybe I’ll join you and your dad.”
I fixate on reeling Ethel in. “Thanks for the offer, Sean. But your nieces and nephews need you. You’ve gotta organize the touch football.”
Coughlin looks down and scuffs the ground with one enormous hoof. “Yeah, right. It’s nice to be needed.”
I look away. I’m not going there now.
He scrambles to cover the awkwardness. “Looks like your dad will only get probation for his part in helping dispose of your mom’s body. The DA’s got bigger fish to fry. Finneran’s getting out of the hospital tomorrow. They’ll move him straight to the prison in Trenton. Got a special wing there for disgraced New Jersey politicians.”
“Really?”
“Joke, Audrey.”
"Well, if they don’t, they ought to. What I can't understand is how Spencer thought he'd get away with it," I say. "He should have realized that if I turned up dead, you'd never let up on the investigation."
"Oh, I'm just a dumb clod, right? Easy to dupe--no match for
the likes of Spencer Finneran."
There’s a jab in there for me too. “I’m sorry, Sean. I should have trusted you when you warned me to stay away from them. I was blinded, crazed. This thing with my parents—it consumed me.”
Another Man's Treasure (a romantic thriller) (Palmyrton Estate Sale Mystery Series Book 1) Page 31