The Lost Years (26 page)

Mariah stood up and embraced Alvirah. “Willy’s been filling me in,” she explained. “I gather that we’ve all come to the same conclusion, that Lillian does have the parchment and that it’s time to confront her.”

“Has or
had
the parchment,” Alvirah said grimly. “As I’m sure Willy told you, she left the bank carrying a tote bag with some kind of package in it. My guess is that the parchment was in her safe-deposit box and she was delivering it to somebody this morning.”

Alvirah caught Willy’s questioning glance and knew she would have to tell Mariah that she had overheard and taped Lillian’s phone message to Richard last night. “Mariah, I think this is going to be a nasty surprise,” she said as she sat down next to her. She reached for the playback button on her sunburst pin and activated the tape.

“I can’t believe what I’m hearing,” Mariah said, biting her quivering lip as shock and disappointment flooded her. “That means Lillian was probably on her way to meet Richard this morning. He absolutely
swore
to me that he had not seen the parchment. Now I find out he struck a deal for it. God, I feel so betrayed, not just for myself, but worse still for my father. He really loved and respected Richard.”

“Well, we’ll just sit here and wait her out,” Alvirah said. “I’d like to see how she tries to weasel her way out of this one.”

Resolutely, Mariah blinked back the tears that were welling in her eyes. “Alvirah, on my way here at about ten o’clock, Greg called
me. He wanted to see how I was and if I had heard anything more about Rory. I told him I was actually in my car and heading into the city to have it out with Lillian because I believe Dad gave her the parchment to hold for him. I told Greg that if Lillian wasn’t here, I intended to spend the whole day waiting in the lobby if necessary. He said he’d walk over here at about twelve thirty, unless I called him back to change it.”

At twelve twenty Greg walked into the building. Alvirah noticed with approval his protective embrace of Mariah as he leaned over her chair and kissed the top of her head. “Have you seen her yet?” he asked.

“No,” Willy said, “and I have a suggestion. Greg, why don’t you take the girls to lunch and bring me back a sandwich? Alvirah and Mariah, I promise I’ll call you right away if she shows up. We can’t get around the fact that the doorman will tell her that I’m here. But even if she bolts for the elevator, you can phone her when you get back here and play that tape. You can tell her we’re going straight to the cops with it. Trust me, she’ll talk to us.”

“I think that’s a good idea,” Greg said. “But after lunch I have to head out to New Jersey. My appointment with those detectives is at three o’clock.”

O
n Rikers Island, Wally Gruber sat in an attorney conference room listening sourly as Joshua Schultz related the conversation that he had had with Assistant Prosecutor Peter Jones.

“You’re telling me I should hand him the sketch of the guy who wasted that professor and all I get out of it is some half-baked promise that he’ll put in a good word for me before the judge buries me?” Wally shook his head. “I don’t think so.”

“Wally, you’re not in much of a position to call the shots. Suppose you come up with a picture of someone who looks like Tom Cruise and say, ‘That’s the guy I saw’? Are they going to say thanks a lot and give you some kind of free ride?”

“The guy I saw did
not
look like Tom Cruise,” Wally snapped, “and I bet you a million to one that when I sit down with that artist, we’ll come up with someone the family recognizes. Why do you think that guy had his face covered? Maybe he thought that if he ran into that old lady, she’d know who he was, even though she’s nuts.”

Joshua Schultz was beginning to wish he’d never taken the case of
State of New York vs. Wally Gruber.
“Look, Wally, you have a choice,” he began. “Either we take our chances with the prosecutor, or I call the old lady’s lawyer. If you think he can somehow pay you off or fight to get you probation, forget it. That won’t happen.”

“There’s a reward of a hundred grand out there from the insurance company for any leads about the jewelry I took,” Wally pointed out.

“And you have the nerve to think they’re going to give it to the person who took it in the first place?” Schultz asked incredulously.

“Don’t get smart with me,” Wally snapped. “What I’m talking about is they probably think that the gems have been pried out of the settings by now. I know they’re still just like when I got them.”

“How do you know that?”

“Because the fence I deal with has a lot of customers in South America. He told me he was going to take the stash to Rio next month. He told me it’s worth a lot more intact than it would be broken up. The Scott woman is a jewelry designer, right? Suppose I give up the fence and they get the jewelry back. The insurance company would be off the hook. That Scott woman would be thrilled. And on top of all this, I give the face of the killer to the husband, who’s defending the old lady. They’ll all be ready to forgive and forget. They’ll make me man of the year.”

“Sounds good on paper, Wally, but you seem to ignore a couple of very important points. First, the lawyer for Kathleen Lyons is also the husband of the woman who owned the jewelry. He’d have to disqualify himself from the murder case because he’ll have a world-class conflict, the likes of which I’ve never seen before. Second, your information about the fence and jewelry would have to go to the prosecutor, because they’re the ones who would have to investigate it further. So what you’re suggesting is that we give some information to Lloyd Scott and other information to the prosecutor. That’s not going to work.”

“All right. I’ll give the prosecutor another chance. We’ll start with him, and when he sees I can give him the lowdown on the jewelry, maybe his attitude will change. Then we decide if we stay with him on the murder case or go to Lloyd Scott. One way or the other in the next few days, I’ll be sitting down with a cop.”

“Then you want me to call the prosecutor and tell him you’re also willing to provide information about recovering the jewelry?”

Wally pushed back his chair, clearly impatient to end the conversation. “You got it, Josh. Maybe this will convince him that I can solve the murder for him too.”

D
etectives Simon Benet and Rita Rodriguez spent a busy Wednesday morning at the prosecutor’s office. After they’d left Mariah Lyons’s home on Tuesday evening, they’d decided to apply for the last month’s phone records of four of the men who had been at dinner with Mariah: Richard Callahan, Greg Pearson, Albert West, and Charles Michaelson.

“They were the closest associates of Professor Lyons,” Rita observed, “and I don’t buy that not one of them got a look at the parchment. Somebody’s lying, or maybe even they’re
all
lying.”

On Wednesday morning they applied in chambers to Judge Brown to obtain the phone records and their request was granted. “We know Professor Lyons called and told every one of them about the parchment,” Benet pointed out. “Now we’ll be able to see if they called him back and how often they may have spoken to him.”

Their first interview was going to be with Albert West at eleven
A.M
. He was twenty minutes late arriving. Apologetically, he explained that the traffic on the George Washington Bridge had been unexpectedly heavy, and he hadn’t allotted enough time for the drive from Manhattan.

Benet glanced at Rodriguez, aware that she too was picking up the fact that West was nervous. Is it because he’s late for the meeting, or is it because he has something to hide? Benet wondered. He made
a mental note to check what the traffic conditions on the bridge had been for the last hour. West was casually dressed in jeans and a short-sleeved shirt. Benet watched as he clenched and unclenched his hands, noticing that even though the man was not more than five feet six in height and slight of build, the sinewy muscles in his hands and arms hinted at steely strength.

“Professor West, when we spoke on the phone last week, you told me that you never saw the parchment that Professor Lyons had found, is that correct?”

“Absolutely. I heard about the parchment from Jonathan a week and a half before he died. He was wildly excited. I warned him that so-called discoveries often turn out to be clever forgeries. That was our last conversation.”

“Professor West,” Rita said, her voice hesitant, as if the question she was going to ask had just occurred to her. “You were with your colleagues last night at dinner with Ms. Lyons. Do you think that any one of them might have seen the parchment and, because of the murder of Jonathan Lyons, is afraid to admit that fact?”

The two detectives watched Albert West’s expression become impassive as he seemed to be weighing how to answer the question.

“Professor West,” Rita said softly, “if that parchment is as valuable as Jonathan Lyons believed, whoever has it now and is choosing not to come forward is committing a serious crime. It’s not too late for whoever has it to give it up and avoid getting in any deeper.”

West looked around the crowded office as though trying to find a place to hide, then cleared his throat nervously. “It is very hard to point a finger at a colleague and friend,” he began, “but I think in this case it may have become necessary. As Father Aiden told us last night at dinner, the parchment is the property of the Vatican Library, and if further scientific tests absolutely prove it to be authentic, it should be on display there for generations to come. Literally until the end of time.”

“You think you know who has the parchment?” Benet queried. “Because if you do, it is your responsibility to tell us and help us get it back.”

West shook his head and slumped in his seat. “Charles Michaelson,” he said. “I believe he may have it now, or at least
did
have it.”

Simon Benet and Rita Rodriguez were too experienced to show emotion, but both were thinking that this could be the first break in locating the parchment.

“Why do you think Professor Michaelson has it?” Benet asked.

“Let me backtrack,” Albert West said slowly. “Fifteen years ago, a wealthy collector of antiques who regularly hired Charles as a consultant asked him for his professional opinion as to the authenticity of an ancient parchment. Charles was paid five hundred thousand dollars by the seller to tell the collector that it was genuine. In fact, it was a clever forgery.”

“Was Michaelson or the seller ever prosecuted?” Benet asked.

“No. I personally interceded with Desmond Rogers, the buyer. Frankly, other experts had warned him that the parchment was a fraud, but Rogers considered himself very knowledgeable and had absolute faith in Charles. He did not file charges against Charles or the seller because he did not want the public humiliation of having been duped. As you can imagine, Desmond Rogers now considers Charles nothing more than a common thief and beneath contempt.”

Where is this leading? Rita Rodriguez wondered, but Albert West was already answering her unspoken question.

“This morning, just before I left my apartment, I received a call from Desmond Rogers. As you would expect, he knows quite a few other wealthy collectors. One of them has been in touch with him. He heard that Charles is shopping the Joseph of Arimathea parchment and has received several enormously high bids for it from unscrupulous collectors.”

“He’s shopping the parchment!” Benet could not keep the surprise from his voice.