Daddy's Little Girl

by Mary Higgins Clark

  I didn’t want to hear it. I kept shaking my head. “Teddy, you just don’t understand. When my mother and I went to Florida, he let us go.”

  “He told me you thought that, but it isn’t true. He didn’t just let you go. He wanted you back. He tried to get you back. The few times you visited him after he and your mother broke up, you never said one word to him and you wouldn’t even eat. What was he supposed to do? Your mother told him there was too much grief to contain under one roof, that she only wanted to remember the good parts and go on to a new life. And she did.”

  “How do you know all this?”

  “Because I asked him. Because I thought he’d have a heart attack when he saw the last item you put on the Website. He’s sixty-seven years old, Ellie, and he has high blood pressure.”

  “Does he know you’re here?”

  “I told him I was coming. I’m here to beg you to come home with me, and if you won’t do that, at least to check out of here and go someplace where nobody except us knows where you are.”

  He was so earnest, so concerned, so caring that I almost put my arms around him. “Teddy, there are things you don’t understand. I knew Andrea might have gone to meet Rob Westerfield that night, and I didn’t tell on her. I’ve had to carry that blame all my life. Now when Westerfield gets his new trial, he’s going to convince a lot of people that Paulie Stroebel killed Andrea. I didn’t save her, but I have to try to save Paulie.”

  “Dad told me it was his fault that Andrea died. He was late getting home. One of the guys he worked with had gotten engaged, and he had a beer with him to celebrate. He was starting to get suspicious and worried that Andrea was still seeing Westerfield behind his back. He told me that if he had been home earlier, he would never have allowed her to go to Joan’s house that night—so instead of being in that garage, she would have been at home, safe.”

  He believed what he was telling me. Was my memory so distorted? Not completely. It wasn’t that simple. But was my abiding sense of guilt—“If only Ellie had told us”—only a part of the total picture? My mother let Andrea go out after dark alone. My father suspected Andrea was still seeing Rob but had not yet actually confronted her. My mother had insisted on moving to what was then a rural and isolated community. My father may have been too strict with Andrea; his attempts to protect her may have made her rebellious. I was the confidante who knew of the secret meetings.

  Did the three of us choose to harbor guilt and grief within our own souls, or did we have any choice?

  “Ellie, my mother is a very nice lady. She was a widow when she met Dad. She knows what it is to lose someone. She wants to meet you. You’d like her.”

  “Teddy, I promise I will meet her someday.”

  “Someday soon.”

  “When I’ve seen this through. It’s not going to take much longer.”

  “You will talk to Dad? You will give him a break?”

  “When this is over, we’ll have lunch or something. I promise. And listen, I’m going out tonight with Pete Lawlor, someone I worked with in Atlanta. I don’t want either one of you following me around. He’s picking me up here and will deposit me back here safely, I promise.”

  “Dad will be relieved to hear that.”

  “Teddy, I have to get upstairs. There are a couple of calls I have to make before I go out.”

  “I’ve said what I have to say. No, maybe I haven’t. There’s something else Dad told me that you should know. He said, ‘I’ve lost one little girl. I can’t lose another.’ ”

  41

  IF I HAD EXPECTED a hint of romance in our meeting, it was quickly dismissed. Pete’s greeting to me was “You look great,” accompanied by a quick kiss on the cheek.

  “And you’re so gussied up, you look as though you won a fifteen-minute shopping spree in Blooming-dale’s,” I told him.

  “Twenty minutes,” he corrected. “I’m starving, aren’t you?”

  I had made a reservation at Cathryn’s, and while we were driving over, I said, “Big request.”

  “Let’s have it.”

  “Tonight I would like not to talk about what I’ve been doing these past weeks. You watch the Website, so you really know what’s going on anyhow. But I need to get away from it for a few hours. So tonight is your night. Tell me every single place you’ve been since I saw you in Atlanta. I want every detail about the interviews you’ve had. Then tell me why you’re so pleased about the job you’re taking. You can even tell me if you had a hard time choosing between that very nice, and obviously new, red tie or another one.”

  Pete has a way of raising one eyebrow. He did that now. “You’re serious?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “The minute I saw this tie, I knew I had to have it.”

  “Very good,” I encouraged. “I want to hear more.”

  At the restaurant we looked at the menu, ordered smoked salmon and a seafood pasta, and agreed to split a bottle of Pinot Grigio. “It’s handy that we both like the same entrées,” Pete said. “Makes it easier with the wine selection.”

  “The last time I was here I had the rack of lamb,” I told him.

  He looked at me.

  “I love to irritate you,” I admitted.

  “It shows.”

  Over dinner he did open up to me. “Ellie, I knew the paper was on the way out. That happens to any business that’s family owned when the present generation is only interested in the dollar sign. Frankly, I was getting itchy anyway. In this business, unless you can see that you have a good reason to stay with a company, you’ve got to be aware of other opportunities.”

  “Then why didn’t you leave sooner?” I asked.

  He looked at me. “I’ll take a pass on that one. But when it became inevitable, I knew two things for sure. I wanted either to get with a solid newspaper—such as The New York Times, the L. A. Times, the Chicago Trib, or the Houston Chronicle—or to try something else altogether. The newspaper jobs were there, but then that ‘something else’ opened up, and I went for it.”

  “A new cable news station.”

  “Exactly. I’m in on the ground floor. It has risks, of course, but substantial investors are committed to making it happen.”

  “You said it involved a lot of traveling?”

  “By a lot I mean the kind anchormen do when they’re onto a big story.”

  “You’re not telling me you’re an anchorman!”

  “Perhaps that’s too grandiose a word. I’m on the news desk. Short, clipped, and hard-hitting is in these days. Maybe it will work; maybe it won’t.”

  I thought about it. Pete was smart, intense, and got to the point quickly. “I think you’ll actually be good at it,” I told him.

  “There’s something so touching about the way you lavish praise on me, Ellie. Don’t go overboard, please. It might go to my head.”

  I ignored that. “Then you’re going to be based in New York City and you’re moving there?”

  “I already have. I found an apartment in SoHo. It’s not great, but it’s a start.”

  “Won’t that be kind of a big change for you? Your whole family is in Atlanta.”

  “My grandparents were all New Yorkers. I used to visit them a lot when I was a kid.”

  “I see.”

  We waited silently while the table was cleared. Then when we’d ordered espresso, Pete said, “All right, Ellie, we’ve played the game by your rules. Now I get my two cents in. I want to hear everything you’ve been up to, and I mean everything.”

  By now I was ready to talk about it, so I told him all, including Teddy’s visit. When I was finished, Pete said, “Your father’s right. You’ve got to move in with him or at least not be visible around Oldham.”

  “I think he may be right about that,” I admitted reluctantly.

  “I have to go to Chicago in the morning for a meeting with the board of Packard Cable. I’ll be gone until Saturday. Ellie, please go down to New York and stay in my apartment. You can be in touch with Marcus Longo an
d Mrs. Hilmer and Mrs. Stroebel from there, and you can keep up your Website as well. But at the same time, you’ll be safe. Will you do that?”

  I knew he was right. “For a few days, until I can figure out where to go, yes, I will.”

  When we got back to the inn, Pete left his car in the driveway and walked me inside. The night clerk was on duty. “Has anyone been looking for Ms. Cavanaugh?” Pete asked him.

  “No, sir.”

  “Any messages for her?”

  “Mr. Longo and Mrs. Hilmer returned her calls.”

  “Thank you.”

  At the foot of the stairs, he put his hands on my shoulders. “Ellie, I know you’ve had to see this through, and I’ve understood. But now you can’t go it alone anymore. You need us around you.”

  “Us?”

  “Your father, Teddy, me.”

  “You’ve been in touch with my father, haven’t you?”

  He patted my cheek. “Of course I have.”

  42

  I DREAMT A LOT that night. It was an anxiety-ridden dream. Andrea was slipping through the woods. I was trying to call her back, but I couldn’t make her hear me and watched in despair as she ran past old Mrs. Westerfield’s house and into the garage. I was trying to shout a warning, but then Rob Westerfield was there and waving me away.

  I woke to the faint sound of my own voice trying to call for help. Dawn was just breaking, and I could see that it was going to be another of those gray, cloudy, cold days we get in early November.

  Even as a child I found the first two weeks of November unsettling, but after the middle of the month, the festive feeling of Thanksgiving was in the air. But those first two weeks seemed long and dreary. Then, after Andrea died, they became forever linked with the memories of the last days we spent together. The anniversary of her death was only a few days away.

  Those were the thoughts in my mind as I lay in bed, wishing for an hour or two more of sleep. The dream wasn’t hard to analyze. The imminent anniversary of Andrea’s death and the fact that I was acutely aware that Rob Westerfield would be enraged by the latest information on my Website were playing on my mind.

  I knew that I needed to be very careful.

  At seven o’clock I sent for room service; then I began to work on my book. At nine o’clock I showered, dressed, and phoned Mrs. Hilmer.

  I was hoping against hope that her call had been to say she remembered why the name “Phil” was familiar to her. But even as I asked her that question, I realized it was terribly unlikely that she would come up with anything that could be connected to Rob Westerfield’s vicious boast.

  “Ellie, that name is the only thing I’ve been able to think about,” she said, sighing. “I called you last night to tell you that I checked with my friend who’s in contact with Phil Oliver. I told you about him. Phil Oliver is the man who lost his lease and had a pretty ugly confrontation with Rob Westerfield’s father. My friend told me that he’s down in Florida, likes it well enough, but is still pretty bitter about the way he was treated. He reads your Website and loves it. He says if you want to start a Website to let the world know the kind of man Rob’s father is, too, he’ll be happy to talk to you.”

  Interesting, I thought, but not helpful information right now.

  “Ellie, the one thing I’m sure of is that whatever I heard or read about ‘Phil,’ it was only recently. And if this is any help, it made me sad.”

  “Sad?”

  “Ellie, I know I’m not making sense, but I’m working on it. I’ll get back to you the minute I piece it together.”

  Mrs. Hilmer had been calling me on the phone at the inn. I didn’t want to explain that I was checking out, or go into detail about Pete and his apartment in New York. “You have my cell phone number, don’t you, Mrs. Hilmer?”

  “Yes, you gave it to me.”

  “I’m going to be in and out so much. Will you call me on that number if you come up with the connection?”

  “Of course.”

  * * *

  MARCUS LONGO was the next one on my list to call. I thought he sounded subdued, and I was right.

  “Ellie, what you put on the Website yesterday is inviting a massive lawsuit from both Westerfield and his lawyer, William Hamilton.”

  “Good. Let them sue me. I can’t wait to depose them.”

  “Ellie, being right isn’t always a provable or successful legal defense. The law can be very tricky. The drawing you claim is evidence of Rob Westerfield’s part in the attempted murder of his grandmother was provided by the brother of the man who shot her. And he admits that he was the driver of the getaway car. He’s hardly a stellar witness. How much did you pay him for that information?”

  “One thousand dollars.”

  “Do you know how that would look in court? If not, let me explain it to you. You put up a sign outside Sing Sing. You advertise on the Website. In so many words it says, ‘Anyone who knows of a crime Rob Westerfield may have committed can make a quick buck.’ This guy could be an out-and-out liar.”

  “Do you think he is?”

  “What I think doesn’t matter.”

  “Oh, but it does, Marcus. Do you believe Rob Westerfield planned that crime?”

  “Yes, I do, but then I always thought he planned it. That has nothing to do with the multimillion-dollar slander suit you may be facing.”

  “Let them sue. I hope they do. I have a couple of thousand dollars in the bank and a car with sand in the gas tank that probably needs a new engine, and I may make some decent money on my book. They’re welcome to try to get it.”

  “It’s your show, Ellie.”

  “Two things, Marcus. I’m checking out of here today and going to stay at a friend’s apartment.”

  “Not around here, I hope.”

  “No, in Manhattan.”

  “That is a great relief for me. Does your father know that?”

  If not, I bet you’ll tell him, I thought. I wondered how many of my friends in Oldham were in contact with my father. “I’m not sure,” I said honestly. For all I knew, Pete may have called him last night the minute he left me.

  I was going to ask Marcus if he had any success in following up on a homicide with someone named “Phil” as the victim, but he anticipated the question. “So far, zero, blank, nothing to tie Westerfield to another crime,” he said. “But I still have a lot of searching to do. We’re also following up on that name Rob liked to use in school.”

  “Jim Wilding?”

  “Yes.”

  We agreed to stay in close touch.

  * * *

  I HADN’T SPOKEN to Mrs. Stroebel since Sunday afternoon. I called the hospital, hoping to hear that Paulie had been discharged, but he was still there.

  Mrs. Stroebel was with him. “Ellie, he’s much better. I stop in around this time each day, then go to the store and come back around noon. Thank God for Greta. You met her the day Paulie was brought in here. She is so good. She is keeping everything going.”

  “When will Paulie be able to go home?”

  “I think tomorrow, but, Ellie, he wants to see you again. He is trying to remember something you said to him that he says was not correct. He wants to straighten it out, but he doesn’t know what it is. You understand—he’s had so much medication.”

  My heart sank. Something I said? Dear God, was Paulie confused again, or was he going to retract anything he had told me? I was glad I had held off putting on the Website his story connecting Rob to the locket.

  “I can come over and see him,” I offered.

  “Why don’t you come around one o’clock? I will be here then, and I think that makes him more comfortable.”

  More comfortable, I thought, or do you mean you want to be sure he won’t say anything that will incriminate him? No, I didn’t believe that. “I’ll be there, Mrs. Stroebel,” I said. “If I arrive before you, I’ll wait for you to come before I visit Paulie.”

  “Thank you, Ellie.”

  She sounded so grateful that I was as
hamed of myself for thinking she might be trying to prevent Paulie from being honest with me. She had been the one to call me, and her life was now split between keeping up the deli and visiting her ailing son. God tempers the wind to the shorn lamb. He does it best when he sends someone like Paulie a mother like Anja Stroebel.

  * * *

  I MANAGED TO GET two hours’ work in, then I checked Rob Westerfield’s Website. It still had the picture of me shackled to the bed, and more names had been added to the Committee for Justice for Rob Westerfield. But nothing had been added to refute my story of his involvement in the attempted murder of his grandmother.

  I took that to be a sign of consternation in the ranks. They were still debating what to do about it.

  At eleven o’clock the phone rang. It was Joan. “Want to have a quick lunch around one o’clock?” Joan asked. “I have some errands to do and just realized I’ll be passing your door.”

  “I can’t. I promised to visit Paulie at the hospital at one o’clock,” I said, then hesitated. “But Joan—”

  “What is it, Ellie? Are you all right?”

  “Yes, I’m fine. Joan, you told me you have a copy of the obituary notice my father put in the paper for my mother.”

  “Yes, I do. I offered to show it to you.”

  “Can you put your hand on it easily?”

  “Yes, I can.”

  “Then if you’re passing the inn, would you mind dropping it off at the desk? I’d really like to see it.”

  “Consider it done.”

  * * *

  WHEN I GOT TO THE HOSPITAL, there was a buzz of activity in the lobby. I saw a group of reporters and cameramen clustered together at the far end of the room, and I quickly turned my back to them.

  The woman next to me on the line to get a visitor’s pass told me what had happened. Mrs. Dorothy West-erfield, Rob’s grandmother, had been rushed into the emergency room, suffering from a heart attack.

  Her lawyer had issued a statement to the media that last evening, as a permanent memorial to her late husband, U.S. Senator Pearson Westerfield, Mrs. Westerfield had changed her will and would be leaving her estate to a charitable foundation that would be charged with dispersing all of it within ten years.