Dying for Mercy

by Mary Jane Clark

  “It’s called an aviary, Janie, and I think that can be arranged.”

  “You know, they have a bird in there that talks,” said Janie.

  “A parrot?”

  “Uh-huh. Innis showed me. And it can tell you what it likes.”

  “Really?” asked Eliza as she put gloss on her lips.

  “Yep. It says ‘sun’ and ‘air’ and ‘grapes.’ It likes to eat grapes.”

  “You’ll have to show it to me,” said Eliza.

  Mollified, Janie followed her mother as she walked into the bedroom, went to the closet, and took the jewelry case from the wall safe.

  “Which ones should I wear?” Eliza asked as they sat side by side on the bed. “The pearls or the garnets?”

  Janie considered carefully before answering. “The dark red ones,” she said decisively. “They’re the color of your dress.”

  “Good choice,” said Eliza, fastening the stones to her ears. She stood, slipped on her heels, and took a last look in the full-length mirror.

  “What kind of party is it, Mom?” asked Janie as they left the bedroom and went down the stairs. “A birthday party?”

  “Not exactly,” Eliza answered. “It’s a party to celebrate the feast day of St. Francis of Assisi.”

  “Are you bringing him a present?”

  Eliza laughed. “No, sweetheart, he won’t be there. St. Francis died a long time ago.”

  “Then why are they having a party for him?”

  “Valentina and Innis want to celebrate his spirit. St. Francis was a very good and holy man who did many things to help many people and animals in his lifetime. He’s the patron saint of Italy, and when Valentina and Innis lived there, they became very devoted to him.”

  “Did people give him parties when he was still alive?” asked Janie.

  “I don’t think so,” said Eliza. “He taught repentance. Parties weren’t on his agenda.”

  “That’s too bad,” said the child.

  “I doubt that St. Francis thought so, Janie. He loved nature and animals and wanted the people who followed him to live simply and take care of other people. I suppose St. Francis would consider a party like this frivolous.”

  Janie cocked her head to the side. “What does ‘frivolous’ mean?” she asked.

  “Silly, not really important.”

  Janie considered this. “I don’t think my birthday party is silly. I think it’s very important.”

  “Of course it is,” said Eliza, “but as you get older, a birthday party, believe it or not, isn’t always something you want. Besides, I bet St. Francis would rather see the money spent on his party go to feeding the poor.”

  While Janie thought about this, Eliza looked out the living-room window and saw yet another car driving slowly past her house. The place where they lived had become a tourist attraction since the kidnapping. Sightseers strained for a glimpse of the famous mother and the daughter who’d been the subject of a nationwide search.

  Eliza hated the loss of privacy. Ordering tall evergreens to be planted along the front of the property might help shield them from prying eyes, but she knew the drive-bys would continue.

  She’d hired a security company and it was reassuring to see the car parked out front. The guard inside was watching—and armed. The local police also patrolled the street more often these days.

  Still, Eliza knew that no amount of security could absolutely guarantee that something wouldn’t happen to her child. She had to live with the fact and try not to dwell on it.

  “Mrs. Garcia,” called Eliza as she saw her driver pull up, “I’m leaving.”

  The housekeeper came out of the kitchen and put her arm around Janie’s shoulders as Eliza uttered yet another silent prayer of gratitude that Mrs. Garcia had survived the kidnapping as well. That the FBI had found both before it was too late was a miracle.

  “We are going to have a good time while your mommy is out, aren’t we, niña?” Mrs. Garcia asked Janie. “I think we make some brownies.”

  “I won’t be late,” said Eliza as she started for the door.

  Janie reached out and grabbed her mother’s dress.

  “What, Janie? What is it, sweetheart?” asked Eliza, fearing she had been wrong to accept the invitation. Yet Valentina Wheelock had been so insistent that Eliza come to the party, and the Wheelocks’ house in Tuxedo Park was only twenty minutes away from Ho-Ho-Kus. Now, as she looked down at her daughter holding onto the red fabric of her dress, Eliza doubted she’d made the right decision to go to this party. “What’s wrong, Janie?” Eliza asked again as she bent to look directly into her daughter’s eyes.

  “What does ‘repentance’ mean?”

  “What?” asked Eliza.

  ”You said St. Francis taught repentance,” said Janie. “What is that?”

  “Basically it means being sorry for things you’ve done,” Eliza answered with relief that Janie was focused only on a definition.

  “What kinds of things?” asked Janie.

  “Sins,” said Eliza. “The kinds of things nobody should ever do.”

  CHAPTER 2

  Everything had to be perfect tonight.

  Innis Wheelock descended the marble steps of the grand spiral staircase that led from the upper levels of the mansion down to the main floor. In the dining room, caterers were ensuring that all was in readiness for the party. Pots of orchids from the greenhouse and sparkling silver chafing dishes were spread out on the enormous trestle table, which tonight would serve as a huge buffet. From there, Innis wandered down the long vaulted gallery that led to the expansive double parlor. He walked over to the elaborate fireplace and rubbed his hands on the highly polished wood surface of the mantel, admiring the expert craftsmanship of the carvings that adorned it. Four hand-cut blocks, protruding from the front, each with a letter inscribed on its face, spelling “ROMA.” A tribute to Innis’s beloved city.

  Innis sank into one of the down-filled armchairs and looked around, thinking about what had led up to this evening’s event: the months of meticulous designing, the many shopping trips in Italy, carefully choosing which architectural elements to ship back to the United States in giant wood and metal containers. Innis had plotted and planned and finally assembled all the elements that would make up his final puzzle.

  Executing the renovation had taken professional help from the architect, carpenters, masons, plumbers, electricians, and landscape engineers. Innis had coordinated it all. The result had been worth it. Pentimento was a gracious, unique home, with every modern convenience, yet brimming with Old World charm and character.

  The house hadn’t always been called Pentimento. Everyone in the park had known it as the Abbate place when Valentina had grown up in the mansion. She hadn’t understood when he told her what he wanted to call their newly refurbished home.

  “But a pentimento is an alteration in a painting, isn’t it? It allows you to see traces of the artist’s original work, showing that the artist changed his mind about the composition during the process of painting. What does that have to do with our home?” she’d asked.

  “I’ve changed my mind about the composition of my life, dear one,” Innis had answered. “I want to alter it. The work I’ve done on this house is a start.”

  Valentina had shrugged and gone along, not pressing him for any details. Innis suspected that Valentina felt that it was easier, and safer, not to press the issue. After thirty-five years of marriage and a political career that had been supported and orchestrated largely by Innis, Valentina seemed satisfied enough with their life. She wasn’t interested in shaking things up or changing anything—except perhaps the screeching birds he had stocked in the aviary he’d insisted on building.

  The inspiration for the aviary, as for almost everything else Innis had planned at Pentimento, came from St. Francis. While studying Giotto’s huge frescoes of the saint’s life on the walls of the basilica in Assisi, Innis had become fascinated with the one depicting St. Francis preaching to the birds that
had filled the trees on both sides of an Italian road. Drawn by the power of his voice, the birds surrounded him, listening intently, it seemed, as he reminded them that God had given them everything—rivers and fountains for their thirst, tall trees for their nests, mountains and valleys for their shelter—and that they should always seek to praise the God to whom they owed so much.

  Innis had wondered if the episode with the birds had really happened or whether it was just part of folklore. Whatever the case, it was while studying the fresco that Innis decided what he had to do.

  He was certain that he hadn’t always praised God by his actions, until now. In fact, he knew too well that he’d done things that God would condemn. He had to atone for those things and make up, as much as possible, for the evil he had committed. He had to make sure, as well, that justice was done in the future.

  “Pentimento” came from pentire, the Italian word for repent. Tonight the repentance would begin. But first he had to hide the video camera, the final puzzle piece.

  CHAPTER 3

  As the sun set over the Ramapo Mountains, the man in the stone guardhouse leaned forward to peer through the car window, craning his neck to get a better view of the passenger in the backseat.

  “Eliza Blake is a guest of the Wheelocks,” said the driver.

  The security guard was careful to keep his facial expression neutral.

  Even in the failing light, she was recognizable. The wide-set blue eyes, the straight nose, the dark, shoulder-length hair. He felt a pang as she smiled at him, the smile that had greeted him so many times from the television screen.

  “Good evening,” she said.

  “Evening, ma’am,” he answered, wanting to say more but holding back. He would like to tell Eliza that he was a big fan, that he thought she was the best of all the morning-show hosts, that he appreciated having her input each day, having her keep him company while he drank his first cup of coffee. But it wasn’t his place to have any sort of personal conversation with residents or their guests. It had been made quite clear to him when he was hired that his job was to keep anyone who didn’t belong in Tuxedo Park out of Tuxedo Park. He was to remain professional and polite and never hobnob or socialize with the people whose security he protected.

  Checking his clipboard, he gave the driver directions, pushed the mechanism to raise the gate, and watched as the car drove through, past the massive old stone gatehouse and the tower that flanked the road and onward up the hill.

  CHAPTER 4

  After Innis finished his task, he found his wife standing at the bottom of the grand staircase. She appeared relieved when she saw him.

  “Where have you been?” asked Valentina. “I’ve been looking for you, Innis. Our guests will be here in a few minutes.”

  “I had one last detail to take care of,” said Innis. “Everything is going to be perfect tonight. It’s all going to go according to plan.”

  Valentina reached out to straighten her husband’s tie. “You sound like you’re talking about a campaign, not a party,” she said.

  He stared at her, studied her, trying to press every detail of her face forever in his memory.

  “What is it, Innis? Why are you looking at me like that? Do I have lipstick on my teeth or something?”

  “No, my dear one, nothing is wrong. You look absolutely beautiful, elegant in your black velvet. I was just thinking about the long journey we’ve taken together and how lucky I was to be married to a woman like you.”

  “It hasn’t all been a bed of roses,” said Valentina. “We certainly haven’t agreed on everything.”

  “I know we haven’t.”

  Valentina turned her back toward Innis. “Zip me up the rest of the way, will you?”

  As he caught sight of the soft white skin on her neck, he swallowed. He was going to be leaving her exposed and vulnerable. But he had to be resolute.

  “I’ve tried to shield you from things, Valentina,” he whispered. “But there are some things that must be faced, sooner or later.”

  She spun around to face him. “I thought we agreed not to talk about it anymore.”

  “Not talk of what?” asked Innis. “Which one of the things don’t you want to talk about? There have been so many. And others you don’t even know about.”

  “Look, this isn’t the time,” said Valentina, reaching up to smooth her blond hair. “We’ve got almost a hundred people coming tonight. Let’s not start the evening with another fight.”

  CHAPTER 5

  Eliza sat back and looked out the window at the darkening woods that rimmed the winding road. She marveled at the thought of the roadway’s having been forged up the mountain and through the thick virgin forest without the aid of electricity or giant earthmoving equipment. No computer animations had been used to plot the route, no giant trucks had transported building materials.

  Hundreds of acres of forbidding terrain with huge granite boulders and rocky soil had been transformed by the great vision and willpower of tobacco heir Pierre Lorillard. What began as a fishing and hunting reserve just forty miles northwest of New York City was transformed into an exclusive year-round enclave for America’s elite at the end of the nineteenth century.

  The most renowned architects of the time designed massive “cottages,” carriage houses, boathouses, and gardens situated to take advantage of the splendid mountains and glorious views of three lakes. Tuxedo Park was listed on the National Register of Historic Places, and as the old mansions set back from the road began to come into view, Eliza was glad. The houses were masterpieces and should be preserved. They represented a unique time in American history, a time when vast fortunes were amassed as the country galloped into the industrial revolution. The imposing structures were built with the cheap labor provided by the immigrant population streaming into the United States from Europe and maintained by that same cheap labor as well—with money not yet subject to the drain of income taxes.

  For a while, if you were one of the fortunate, life was just about perfect. Then the government began taxing income. Next came the Roaring Twenties, followed by a decade of economic depression. Residents who had suffered business reversals could no longer afford to live in the park, but it was hard to find buyers for the big houses, even at bargain prices during the Depression and World War II. With workingmen and-women serving in the armed forces and employed in factories, there simply weren’t enough servants for the upkeep and the mansions became uninhabitable. The decline of the park lasted for several decades. Some houses were deserted, some burned to the ground, some barely survived as heirs took to living in just a few rooms while they struggled to live on dwindling trust funds. Finally, at the end of the twentieth century, with a booming economy and stupendous fortunes made in industry and technology, sports and entertainment, the big houses became desirable again.

  Tuxedo Park was still a privileged and protected world where residents didn’t lock their doors or take the keys out of their car ignitions. Guarded by the enclave’s own police department, Tuxedo Park’s children ran free, their parents feeling safe. There were no leash laws for dogs. And, until recently, the houses had no numbers. Residences were referred to by the family’s surname or by the name the house had been given by its original owners.

  Before the first interview Eliza had done with Valentina, she learned that it was here in Tuxedo Park that Valentina Abbate and Innis Wheelock had grown up and gone to school together. It was here that they had married at the Abbates’ Italianate villa perched on the hillside above Tuxedo Lake. It was to here that they had returned after their stints in the governor’s mansion in Albany and the United States ambassador’s residence in Rome.

  In the twilight a deer darted out in front of the car, forcing the driver to slam on the brakes and Eliza to snap out of her reverie. She caught her breath as she watched the big doe leap across the road before disappearing into the woods.

  “Thank God you didn’t hit that beautiful creature, Charlie,” said Eliza. “That would have bee
n such a horrible way to start the night.”

  CHAPTER 6

  The party guests were arriving, and Valentina and Innis Wheelock were gracious and welcoming. So influential and accomplished were they that no one knew it was a sham. They had a secret. An explosive secret.

  Yes, they loved each other; yes, they were devoted to each other. But their marriage was far from perfect. They hid things. They hadn’t been fully honest with the public or with those they purported to care about.

  You had to give credit where credit was due, though. Innis had insisted on that one-on-one conversation in his study, a chance to air any anger and resentment with no one else around to hear. He hadn’t seemed shocked when he heard the feelings that gushed out. It was as if Innis had known exactly what would be said and didn’t care. In fact, Innis had seemed pleased to listen as the ugly explanations for what had been done came spewing forth.

  Innis responded with a diatribe of his own, promises to go public with everything and to ensure that justice would be done in the end.

  And were they even promises—or threats? What did he mean when he said that the world was going to know?

  Upon leaving the office, another potential threat appeared.

  Eunice was standing outside the door. By the expression on her face and her flustered behavior, it was obvious that the maid had been eavesdropping.

  Not that it wasn’t understandable that Eunice would do such a thing. Anytime there was a chance to listen in on someone’s conversation, it was an opportunity not to be wasted.

  Eavesdroppers at Pentimento heard very valuable information.

  CHAPTER 7

  The car inched along the crushed-stone driveway, behind the other vehicles waiting for the chance to drop off their passengers. Spotlights were trained on the big house, illuminating the stucco façade and the colorful etched-glass windows with decorative crowns, while Corinthian columns stood guard across the full expanse of the entranceway. Red-clay tiles covered the extensive roof. A European garden was plotted at the side of the house. A copy of Bernini’s famous turtle fountain in Rome stood in the center.