“Okay, thank you, Mr. Walsh. We can wrap it up here. You can break down, guys,” directed Matthew, disappointed that Emmett hadn’t given them more to work with. They needed to get some better interviews elsewhere or this segment wasn’t going to cut it.
The group climbed the stairs. As they were about to exit the Walsh home, Laura turned to her father. “Pop, I almost forgot. I want to get that scrapbook you have with the old pictures of Palisades. We might be able to use them in our piece.”
When his daughter, with the red photo album under her arm, and her colleagues left, Emmett headed straight to the refrigerator.
66
MATTHEW OFFERED THEIR camera crew a choice. They could break for lunch and then go shoot the Palisades Amusement Park memorial site later in the afternoon, or they could go straight from the interview to the nearby monument, get the video they needed and then call it a wrap, having the rest of the day off to do as they pleased. The crew chose the latter.
Laura was quiet, the corners of her mouth turned down, as she stood in the bitter January cold, watching the cameraman zoom his lens in on the huge rock that was the centerpiece of the “Little Park of Memories.” Just in front of Winston Towers building 300 sat a large boulder surrounded by a brick walkway. It was a commemoration of sorts, funded by donations from hundreds of people across the country who all shared the same passion for Palisades.
DEDICATED TO THE MEMORY OF PALISADES AMUSEMENT PARK, read the bronze plaque affixed to the front of the boulder. HERE WE WERE HAPPY, HERE WE GREW!
Yeah, right, thought Laura.
“Make sure you get the inscriptions on the bricks, too,” Matthew instructed the crew. The camera panned over the names of people and families who had paid for the memorial walkway and now were listed permanently in the hardened red clay.
“I was expecting something more,” observed Matthew. “This reminds me of a little cemetery plot.”
Matthew was right. This little monument was not going to make it visually, thought Laura.
“There is some sort of move to establish a Palisades Park museum,” she offered. “Actually, there is going to be a big fundraiser for it at the end of the month.”
“Great.” Matthew brightened. “Let’s see if we can get in and shoot. I’ll bet we could get some great sound of park lovers’ memories and show how much the amusement park meant to so many people.”
Laura nodded expressionlessly.
“You’re awfully quiet,” said Matthew softly as the crew started to pack up their gear.
“I’m just cold. And I’m ready to call it a day, too.” Laura turned her back on Matthew and started toward the car. But the car was locked and she had to wait while Matthew gave the crew their “in-time” for the next day and briefly informed them about what they’d be shooting tomorrow.
As the crew pulled away in their KEY News sedan, Laura and Matthew got into his black Saab.
“Want to stop for some lunch?” offered Matthew.
“Sure. Why not?” Laura shrugged.
“Great. I’m starved. This is your territory. Any suggestions?”
“You like hot dogs?”
“Love ’em.”
Laura thrust her chin forward. “Straight ahead.”
They drove in silence up Palisades Avenue into Fort Lee and pulled into the busy Hiram’s parking lot. Once inside, they ordered hot dogs, french fries and a pitcher of root beer.
“This place has been here forever—this and Callahan’s, the place next door.” Laura motioned out the restaurant window to the companion building, feeling she should make some sort of effort at conversation. “The menus are just about the same, but they’re both always packed. They used to be just open-air roadside stands doing most of their business in the warm weather. Then they enclosed everything, so now the locals can get their sodium fixes all year round.”
Matthew bit into his steaming frank. “Excellent!” he proclaimed.
Laura played at dipping her french fries into the ketchup.
“Okay. What’s wrong?” he asked.
“Nothing.”
“Yeah, sure. Nothing. You’ve been miserable all day. Why don’t you tell me what’s bothering you?” Matthew reached across the table and placed his warm hand on her cold one.
His touch felt so good and, even as she pulled her hand away, Laura ached to tell him about Gwyneth’s will, the call from Detective Ortiz and her worries about her father. But something kept her from unburdening herself. She didn’t know if she could trust him.
Laura excused herself as Matthew settled the check. With Laura gone, Matthew took a vial from his pocket and popped a tiny pill. He had hoped he would get through the whole day without one. Better luck tomorrow, he thought as he waited for the calm to settle over him.
67
AFTER WORK, DELIA walked along Central Park West toward the 72nd Street entrance to Strawberry Fields. An icy rain sprayed her face and she pulled the collar of her four-year-old wool coat up around her ears. One of the first things she was going to do with her new funds was buy one of those coats she saw advertised in the magazines. A nice heavy black coat, with thick warm fur trimming the collar and cuffs. A rich lady’s coat.
Since she had made the phone call the day before, Delia had been wondering if she was doing the right thing. Her mother, God rest her soul, would be appalled, and would tell her to go to the police immediately and tell them what she had seen. But her mother, who had struggled all her life, thought that it paid to tell the truth. Delia didn’t. She was tired of working hard and getting nowhere.
Still, her conscience was bothering her as she waited for the light to change so she could cross the broad avenue. She uttered a silent prayer as she suddenly remembered that it was the Feast of the Epiphany, the day when the Magi brought their gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh to the Christ child. Delia looked forward to getting her hands on the gold.
The Central Park entrance at Women’s Gate was well lit but deserted, save for a devoted jogger who was leaving the park after his run in the inclement weather. Delia stood beneath the streetlight and waited, looking down the avenue at the remaining holiday lights. The sleet was turning to rain.
After ten minutes passed, Delia began to panic. What if no one was going to meet her?
She ventured slowly into the still park, walking to the plaque honoring John Lennon, the assassinated Beatle who had met his death outside the nearby Dakota, his venerable apartment building. She shivered beneath her wet coat.
Looking farther down the darkened path into the park, she could make out a figure sitting huddled on a bench.
“Delia? I’m down here.”
Slowly, Delia walked toward the bench. The figure rose.
“Come. Walk with me. I don’t want anyone to see us.”
Delia eyed the package under the camel-hair-coated arm.
“Why don’t you just give it to me here? There’s no one around.”
“All right, if that’s the way you want it.”
Delia saw just a flash of the steel blades reflected by the lights on Central Park West as the scissors were plunged viciously into the space between her collar and her neck, and into her jugular vein.
68
Friday, January 7
AFTER DEBATING ABOUT it all morning, Laura tapped tentatively on Joel Malcolm’s opened office door.
“Got a minute?”
“Of course. For you I do. Come on in, Laura.” He waved for her to take a seat. “Well, I see you survived the first week with us. And what a week it’s been.”
Laura smiled weakly.
“What’s up, kiddo?”
Twisting her hands in her lap, Laura began uncertainly, “This is going to come out eventually and I thought it would be better if you heard it from me first.”
The pleasant lines that Joel had arranged on his face changed to an expression of intense interest. “Shoot.”
“Gwyneth named me as a beneficiary of her estate.”
“Y
ou know this how?” Joel asked calmly.
“Her attorneys notified me by mail.”
Why hadn’t he gotten any letter? He felt his face grow warm as the reality became clear to him. Gwyneth had not included him in her will. After all they had been through together and after all, he thought, they had meant to one another. She could have left him something to remember her by.
Screw Gwyneth. But, of course, he already had.
“Do you mind my asking what she left you?” he said evenly.
“Pretty much everything.”
Joel whistled through his teeth. “Baby, you don’t have to work another day in your life.”
Laura shook her head in wonderment. “I don’t understand this at all. I knew Gwyneth was fond of me, but I never imagined anything like this. I never even met her until I came here to do my internship. And I never really understood why she took such an interest in me.”
Joel looked puzzled. “What do you mean, you never even met her until your internship? Gwyneth set up that internship especially for you.”
69
MIKE SCHULTZ TOOK the elevator from the Bulletin Center down to the Broadcast Center lobby to meet Detective Ortiz. He planned to talk to Ortiz in the cafeteria, preferring not to bring the detective up to his office where repeated interruptions would disturb their privacy. He was not particularly concerned that Ortiz wanted to talk with him. In fact, he had been waiting for the detective’s call.
Once they were settled in one of the Station Break booths with steaming cups of coffee before them, Ortiz got right to the point.
“How would you describe your relationship with Gwyneth Gilpatric, Mr. Schultz?”
“Strained,” Mike answered honestly. “I had been her producer at Hourglass and I didn’t leave under the best of circumstances.”
“Tell me about that,” Ortiz urged.
Mike recounted pretty much the same story that Joel Malcolm had: the informant who had been identified by drug pushers and his resulting death.
“Did you feel that you had been unfairly singled out as the patsy to take the fall for the foul-up?” Ortiz asked.
Mike shrugged his large shoulders. “Yes and no. While we were editing the piece, I did see Jaime Cordero in the corner of Gwyneth’s ‘standup,’ but he appeared very briefly. When I pointed it out to Gwyneth and suggested we reshoot it, she refused. Her schedule was packed and she said she was just too busy to go back up to East Harlem and shoot another one. She said that no one would notice. At that point, I should have gone to Joel and insisted that we reshoot. But I didn’t. My loyalties were to Gwyneth, above the show. That was a mistake.” Mike sighed deeply and took a swallow of his coffee.
“But Gwyneth didn’t turn out to be loyal to you, did she, Mr. Schultz?”
“No, sir. She didn’t.”
70
Saturday, January 8
“HE WAS BORN in Puerto Rico and landed his first acting part, the role of the devil, as a first grader in San Juan. As a young man he traveled to New York to study acting and eventually starred in many films, theater productions and television shows. You might know him best as Gomez in The Addams Family.”
“Who is Raul Julia!” Jade chimed triumphantly.
“Absolutely right!” Laura smiled broadly at her eager student. They were playing African-American Jeopardy!—Jade’s favorite tutorial project game. Laura liked to supplement the answers with some of her own about Hispanic-Americans and women, hoping to give Jade further role models for achievement.
“Let’s do another one!” Jade’s eyes danced with enthusiasm.
“Okay. Known as the Mother of the Civil Rights Movement in 1955, this black seamstress refused to give up her seat to a white person on a Montgomery, Alabama, bus and helped to start a movement against segregation.”
“Rosa Parks!”
“You forgot to put your answer in the form of a question…” Laura prompted.
“Oh, yeah, I forgot. Who is Rosa Parks!”
“Correct! You, Miss Jade Figueroa, win the candy bar of your choice.”
“Can we go get it now?” asked the happy child.
Laura looked at her watch. Their two-hour Saturday morning session together was just about up.
“Sure. But what about my Spanish lesson? What’s my new word for today?”
“Oh, yeah, right.” Jade nodded solemnly. She took her reciprocal job as Laura’s Spanish teacher very seriously. “The word for today is ‘cruz’ Do you know what ‘cruz’ means, Laura?”
“Tell me.”
“‘Cruz’ means cross,” declared Jade proudly.
How appropriate, reflected Laura as thoughts of Tommy Cruz’s mysterious death filled her mind. Felipe and Marta Cruz had certainly had their own cross to bear.
71
Sunday, January 9
MATTHEW HAD SUGGESTED that they meet Sunday morning for a run in Central Park and then go out for some breakfast and discuss where they stood with the Palisades Park story. Laura was glad that the day, though cold, was clear. She was looking forward to some strenuous exercise to help clear her head.
It was a beautiful place to run. The Manhattan skyline loomed elegantly around the park. And through the now leafless trees that framed the Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis Reservoir jogging trails, Laura could see riders exercising their horses on the bridle paths that ran parallel to the jogging route. Bird-watchers and nature lovers were out in force on this brisk winter morning, eager to claim their share of nature’s beauty in the now gray and cold city.
As they pounded their way a third time around the jogging track, holding back as the other weekend runners sped past them, Matthew broke their companionable silence.
“Were you going to tell me that you are inheriting big-time from Gwyneth?”
Laura stopped running and tried to catch her breath. “Who told you? Joel?” she panted.
“Of course. Didn’t you realize that telling him was tantamount to telling the world?”
“Obviously I should have.”
They walked the rest of the way around the reservoir in silence, cooling down from their run. Their warm breath looked like smoke as it hit the winter air.
Laura looked at Matthew, his cheeks flushed and perspiration beading at the temples near his dark hair. He kept his eyes cast downward. He looks hurt, she thought.
She could have told him that day at Hiram’s or any of the days since. But she hadn’t. But now, knowing that he knew, she was relieved. She was attracted to him, wanted to share more with him, but couldn’t quite define why she was so hesitant about doing so.
Francheska was always saying that Laura had a problem with men, was afraid to trust them because of her experience with Emmett. Laura didn’t need to go to a shrink to tell her that. But maybe she should get some therapy. She had never dated anyone longer than six months, always breaking it off when things started to get too serious. If she did not learn to be more trusting, she would never have any real intimacy with a man.
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you,” she said softly. “I meant to, I just didn’t.”
Matthew took her gloved hand. “Laura,” he said softly, “I want to get to know you better, but you don’t seem to want that. Why won’t you let me in a little bit? Why don’t you trust me?
“I’m not going to hurt you, you know,” he said gently.
Laura was silent, but slowly her hand went up to her forehead and pushed back her bangs.
“What’s that from?” asked Matthew as he squinted at the thin scar.
“My father,” she said quietly. And after a slight pause, Laura added, “Let’s not get into all the sordid details now, but if I have a problem opening up to men, he’s probably the reason why.”
Matthew leaned down and softly kissed the marred spot above Laura’s brow. Pulling back and smiling encouragingly, he said, “You’ll tell me when you’re ready. Come on.” He smiled. “Let’s go get something to eat.”
Over waffles, crisp bacon and lots of hot coffe
e, they sat at an East Side coffee shop, Matthew listening intently as Laura told him about her relationship with Gwyneth and how puzzled she was about what was happening.
“I didn’t know that Gwyneth had set up that college internship for me. I had never even met the woman before I arrived at Key News. Now she’s left me most of her estate. And the police say there were regular entries in Gwyneth’s checkbook—of checks made out to my father. It just doesn’t make sense. To make matters worse, in addition to an inheritance motive, I had her obituary ready, to boot. So I feel pretty confident that the police are thinking of me as a suspect.”
“What does your father say?”
“I asked him about Gwyneth the day we interviewed him out at his house. Remember, when you and the crew were downstairs? He denies knowing her.” Laura placed her knife and fork neatly on the side of her plate. “Of course, my father hasn’t always been known for his honesty with me.”
Matthew was quiet, and Laura thought she may have told him too much. Why would he want to get involved with someone whose life was so complicated?
“I’m bad news, huh?” she declared with a wry smile.
Matthew reached out and took her hand. “Everyone has baggage, Laura. That’s just life.”
“You seem pretty unencumbered.”
“Don’t worry. I have my own demons.”
“Such as?”
“Try a drug problem, that I fight every single day.”
Laura was flattered and touched that he trusted her enough to reveal himself to her by telling her something so personal and potentially damaging. At the same time, she wondered if it was a death wish to get involved with Matthew Voigt.
72
Monday, January 10
TO: [email protected]
FROM: [email protected]
RE: Palisades Park story
Hi Laura,
We’ve never met, but I work as an audio editor in the KEY Entertainment Department.
I grew up in Cliffside Park and spent many summers at PAP.
Some of my happiest memories are of the fun we used to have in the park. It was a rite of passage to be tall enough to ride the Cyclone, to see how may times you could ride the Tilt-A-Whirl before you got sick. I remember, as a teenager, spending nights at the Penny Arcade, wearing my father’s Eisenhower bomber jacket, commandeering a pinball machine with my cigarette balanced on the edge as I banged away at the flippers. I also remember my old man, in his boxer shorts and argyle socks, waiting at the door for me when I got home, furious at the nicotine stains on my fingers and on my face. And, of course, it was always fun to bring a girl into the photo booth, have her sit on your lap and get four, quick pictures for a quarter.
Let Me Whisper in Your Ear Page 15