The Lost Years (27 page)

“So I am told.” Albert West looked both drained and relieved. “That is all I know. I have no proof beyond what I just told you. I am simply relaying to you what Desmond said to me. But frankly, it makes a great deal of sense. I stress that there is nothing more that I can tell you. May I leave now? I have a one o’clock meeting with my department chairman.”

“Yes, that’s all, except for one thing,” Benet told him. “Do you remember the exact date on which you last spoke to Jonathan Lyons?”

“I think it was the Tuesday before he died, but I’m not sure.”

He’s being evasive, Rita thought, and she took a chance on asking a question that might get her in trouble with Simon Benet. “Don’t worry, Professor West,” she said reassuringly, “we’ll be checking your phone records, so if you’re mistaken, we’ll know.”

Out of the corner of her eye, she caught Benet’s furious stare, but then Albert West sank back into the chair. “Full disclosure,” he said, his voice now high-pitched. “As I told you, I had been in the Adirondacks the weekend before Jonathan died. I
was
planning to stay up there until Tuesday, but it was very hot and humid, and so on Monday I decided to return home. I was very curious about Jonathan’s supposed find and so I impulsively drove down through New Jersey, debating about calling him and asking if I might stop in.”

“What time was that?” Rita asked.

“It was later than I expected it to be. I drove past Mahwah a few minutes before nine.”

“Did you visit Professor Lyons the night he died?” Benet asked.

“No. I realized Jonathan did not like surprises. Upon reflection I thought that he might very well not welcome a visit on such short notice, and so I continued home.”

“Did you phone him to ask if you could stop in?” Rita demanded.

“No. The only reason I bring this up is that I made a phone call while I was in the vicinity of the Lyons home, in case anyone is checking the location of my cell phone at that time.”

“Professor West, who did you call?”

“I called Charles Michaelson. He did not answer and when his answering machine came on I did not leave a message.”

A
fter lunch, Mariah and Alvirah went back to wait at Lillian’s apartment building. Alvirah brought a sandwich and coffee for Willy. They sat for the rest of the afternoon in the lobby. At five o’clock it was Willy who voiced their growing sense of apprehension. “If Lillian was meeting Richard to sell that parchment to him, it’s sure taking a lot of time,” he commented as he got up to stretch his legs.

Mariah nodded. At lunch she had tried to keep up with the conversation, but she felt crushing disappointment after hearing Lillian’s message to Richard. It had robbed her of the faint optimism she had been allowing herself to feel that, given a showdown with Lillian, she might be able to persuade her to quietly return the parchment.

Now she wondered if the revelation that Lillian had the parchment and that Richard was willing to buy it might not be enough to have criminal charges brought against both of them.

Dad, this is the woman you loved, she thought, realizing that the bitterness she had been trying so hard to overcome was returning in full measure. She knew that during lunch Greg had recognized how quiet she had been and had tried to reassure her that the parchment would be recovered and returned to the Vatican Library.

“I never would have thought of Richard as capable of doing something so underhanded,” Greg had observed. “I’m absolutely
stunned.” Then he’d added, “Nothing Lillian did would ever surprise me. Even while she was involved with Jonathan, I always wondered if she didn’t have something going with Charles too. Maybe it was just because they were both big moviegoers. But still, when Lillian wasn’t with Jonathan, it seemed to me that she spent an awful lot of time with Charles.”

Mariah knew the last thing Greg wanted to do was upset her, but the thought that Lillian might have been involved with Charles as well was galling. It was all she could think of as they waited hour by hour in the lobby. Finally, at five thirty, she said, “I think what we need to do is to let Detective Benet hear your recording of that phone call, Alvirah. I guess if he hears it, it would be enough to have him confront both Lillian and Richard. I think I’ll go home now. For all we know, Lillian and Richard are out together celebrating somewhere.”

“I’ll be right back,” Alvirah said. “The new doorman just came on duty. I’ll have a talk with him.” When she returned a few minutes later, she was obviously pleased with herself. “I gave him twenty bucks. I told him that we have a surprise for Lillian, that her cousin is in town unexpectedly. That’s you, Mariah. I gave him my number. He’s going to tip me off when she gets back.”

Mariah reached into her purse and pulled out Benet’s card. “Alvirah,” she said, “I don’t think we should wait any longer. It’s time to call Detective Benet. You can play the tape for him as soon as you get home and let the chips fall where they may.”

O
n Wednesday afternoon, Kathleen Lyons was sitting in a chair by the window in her hospital room, a cup of tea by her side. She had been dozing, and when she woke up, she looked out listlessly at the trees and the way the sun was flickering through the leafy branches. Then she leaned forward. She could see that there was someone half-hidden behind one of the trees.

It was a woman.

It was Lillian.

Kathleen stood up, leaned her hands on the windowsill, and narrowed her eyes so that she could see Lillian more clearly.

“Is Jonathan with her?” she mumbled. Then as she watched, she could see that Lily and Jonathan were taking pictures of each other.

“I hate you!” Kathleen screamed. “I hate both of you!”

“Kathleen, what’s wrong, dear, what’s wrong?” A nurse was hurrying into the room.

Kathleen grabbed the spoon from the saucer of the teacup and spun around in her chair. Her face savage with fury, she pointed the spoon at the nurse.

“Bang… bang… Die, damn you, die! I hate you, I hate you, I hate you…,” she shrieked, then collapsed back into the seat. Her eyes closed, she began to moan, “So much noise… so much blood,” as the nurse quickly injected a sedative into her thin and trembling arm.

G
reg Pearson’s interview with Detectives Benet and Rodriguez had none of the drama of Albert West’s blurted-out accusation against Charles Michaelson.

He explained that he considered himself to be a good friend of Jonathan Lyons and that he had met him six years ago when, on an impulse, he signed up for Jonathan’s annual archaeological dig.

“For Jon and Albert and Charles and Richard, it was a passion,” he said. “I was in awe of their knowledge of antiquities. By the end of that first trip, I was hooked and I knew I would sign up for the next one.”

He verified that about once a month they were invited to the Lyons’ home for dinner. “It was an evening we all thoroughly enjoyed,” he said, “even though it was painful to watch a beautiful and charming woman like Kathleen deteriorate before our eyes.”

In response to questions about Lillian, he said, “The first time she signed up for one of Jonathan’s annual expeditions was five years ago. We could all see that Jonathan was instantly enchanted with her, and she with him. Within three nights they were sharing a bedroom and making no bones about it. Frankly, given their relationship, I felt quite uncomfortable watching her interact with Charles when they were at Jonathan’s dinners. But of course when Kathleen found those pictures, Lillian was banished from ever setting foot in that house again.”

Greg readily admitted to Benet and Rodriguez that Jonathan had told him about his supposed find. “Jon didn’t actually offer to show it to me. He said he was having it evaluated. I told him that at some point I’d love to see it and he promised that after he had gotten the opinions of the experts, he’d let me have a look at it.”

“Where were you on the Monday night that Professor Lyons was murdered, Mr. Pearson?” Rita asked.

Greg looked straight at her. “As I told you last week, Detective Rodriguez, I was in the Time Warner Center in Manhattan, where my apartment is located, all of Monday evening. I had dinner at Per Se on the fourth floor at about six and afterward went directly up to my apartment.”

“Did you have dinner with anyone?”

“After a busy day at my office, I was content to eat quietly by myself, and to forestall your next question, I was alone in my apartment all night.”

Benet’s final question to Greg was about Charles Michaelson. “Do you think it’s possible that Professor Lyons might have entrusted the parchment to him?”

As he and Rodriguez watched, Greg’s face became a study in conflicting emotions. Then he said, “I believe that Jonathan would have entrusted the parchment to Lillian and I believe she would have confided that to Charles. I’m not prepared to speculate any further than that.”

A
n hour later Charles Michaelson was sitting in the chair earlier occupied by Albert West and Greg Pearson. His portly body shook with anger as he got into a fiery exchange with the detectives: “No, I never saw the parchment. How many times do I have to tell you that? If someone says I was shopping it, he’s a liar.”

When told by Benet that they were planning to interview the source of the rumor, Michaelson snapped, “Go ahead. Whoever he is, tell him for me that there are laws about slander and he should look them up.”