The Lost Years (4 page)

Mariah had given them the names of the people who were very close to her father and in whom he might have confided if he had been having any kind of problem.

“Richard Callahan, Charles Michaelson, Albert West, and Greg Pearson have gone on all of Dad’s annual archaeological trips for at least six years,” she had told them. “All of them come to our house for dinner about once a month. Richard is a professor of Bible studies at Fordham University. Charles and Albert are also professors. Greg is a successful businessman. His company has something to do with computer software.” And then, her anger clearly showing, Mariah had also given them the name of Lillian Stewart, her father’s mistress.

These were the people the detectives wanted to meet and set up appointments to interview. Benet had requested that the caregiver, Rory Steiger, identify them when they arrived.

At twenty minutes of nine, Mariah, her mother, and Rory entered the funeral parlor. Even though the detectives had been in her home twice in the past few days, Kathleen Lyons stared vacantly at them. Mariah nodded to them and went to stand by the casket and greet the visitors who were already passing by it.

The detectives chose a spot nearby where they could clearly see their faces and how they interacted with Mariah.

Rory got Kathleen settled on a seat in the front row, then joined them. Unobtrusive in her black-and-white print dress, her graying hair pulled back into a bun, Rory stood behind the detectives. She tried not to show that she was nervous about assisting them. She could not stop thinking that the only reason she had taken this job two years ago was because of Joe Peck, the sixty-five-year-old widower in the same apartment complex she lived in on the Upper West Side of Manhattan.

She had been going out for dinner regularly with Joe, a retired fireman who had a home in Florida. Joe had confided to her how lonely he had been since his wife died, and Rory had built up her hopes that he was going to ask her to marry him. Then one evening he told her that while he enjoyed their occasional dates, he had met someone else who was going to move in with him.

At dinner that night, angry and disappointed, Rory had told her best friend, Rose, that she would take the job she’d just been offered in New Jersey. “It pays well. It does mean I’ll be stuck there from Monday to Friday, but no reason to come rushing home from a day job hoping Joe will call,” Rory had said bitterly.

I never thought taking this job would lead to
this,
she thought. Then she spotted two men in their late sixties. “Just so you know,” she whispered to Detectives Benet and Rodriguez, “those men are experts in Professor Lyons’s field. They came to the house about once a month, and I know they used to talk on the phone a lot to Professor Lyons. The taller one is Professor Charles Michaelson. The other one is Dr. Albert West.”

A minute later she tugged at Benet’s sleeve. “Here are Callahan and Pearson,” she said. “The girlfriend is with them.”

Mariah’s eyes widened when she saw who was coming. I didn’t think that Lily of the Nile Valley would dare show up, she thought,
even while unwillingly admitting to herself that Lillian Stewart was a very attractive woman, with chestnut hair and wide-set brown eyes. She was wearing a light gray linen suit with a white collar. I wonder how long she ransacked boutiques to find it, Mariah asked herself. It looks like the perfect mourning outfit for a mistress.

That’s exactly the kind of crack I’ve been making to Dad about her, she thought remorsefully. And I asked him if she wears those high heels of hers when they’re digging for ruins. Ignoring Stewart, Mariah reached out to clasp the hands of Greg Pearson and Richard Callahan. “Not the best day, is it?” she asked them.

The grief she saw in both their eyes was comforting. She knew how deeply these men had valued her father’s friendship. Both in their midthirties and avid amateur archaeologists, they could not have been more different. Richard, a lean six feet four, with a full head of graying black hair, had a quick sense of humor. She knew that he had been in the seminary for one year and had not ruled out returning to it. He lived near Fordham University, where he taught.

Greg was exactly her height when she was wearing heels. His brown hair was close-cropped. His eyes, a light shade of gray-green, dominated his face. He always had a quiet deferential manner, and Mariah had wondered if despite his business success, Greg might be innately shy. Maybe that’s one of the reasons he loved to be around Dad, she thought. Dad was truly a spellbinding raconteur.

She had gone on a few dates with Greg, but knowing she was not going to be interested in him in any romantic way and afraid he might be going in that direction, she hinted that she was seeing someone else and he never asked her out again.

The two men knelt by the casket for a moment. “No more long evenings with the storyteller,” Mariah said as they stood up.

“It’s so impossible to believe,” Lily murmured.

Then Albert West and Charles Michaelson came over to where
she was standing. “Mariah, I’m so sorry. I can’t believe it. It seems so sudden,” Albert said.

“I know, I know,” Mariah said as she looked at the four men, who had been so dear to her father. “Have the police talked to any of you yet? I had to give a list of close friends and of course that included all of you.” Then she turned to Lily. “And needless to say I included your name.”

Did I sense a sudden change in one of them in that instant? Mariah wondered. She couldn’t be sure because at that moment the funeral director came in and asked people to walk past the casket for the last time, then go to their cars; it was time to leave for the church.

She waited with her mother till the others had left. She was relieved that Lily had had the decency not to touch her father’s body. I think I would have tripped her if she had bent over to kiss him, she thought.

Her mother seemed totally unaware of what was going on. When Mariah led her over to the casket, she looked blankly down at the face of her dead husband and said, “I’m glad he washed his face. So much noise… so much blood.”

Mariah turned her mother over to Rory, then stood by the casket herself. Daddy, you should have had another twenty years, she thought. Somebody is going to pay for doing this to you.

She leaned over and laid her cheek against his, then was sorry she had done so. That hard, cold flesh belonged to an object, not her father.

As she straightened up, she whispered, “I’ll take good care of Mom, I promise you, I will.”

L
illian Stewart had slipped into the back of the church after Jonathan’s funeral Mass was under way. She left before the final prayers so there would be no chance of running into Mariah or her mother after the frosty reception she had just received at the funeral parlor. Then she drove to the cemetery, parked at a distance from the entrance, and waited until the funeral cortege had come and gone. It was only then that she drove along the road that led to Jonathan’s grave site, got out of the car, and walked over to his freshly dug grave, carrying a dozen roses.

The grave diggers were about to lower the casket. They stood back respectfully as she knelt down, placed the roses on it, and whispered, “I love you, Jon.” Then, pale but composed, she walked past the rows of tombstones to her car. Only when she was back inside the car did she let go and bury her face in her hands. The tears she had held back began to gush down her cheeks and her body shook with sobs.

A moment later, she heard the passenger door of her car open. Startled, she looked up, then made a futile attempt to wipe the tears from her face. Comforting arms went around her and held her until her sobs subsided. “I thought you might be here,” Richard Callahan said. “I spotted you briefly in the back of the church.”

Lily pulled away from him. “Dear God, is there any chance
Mariah or her mother saw me?” she asked, her voice husky and unsteady.

“I wouldn’t think so. I was looking for you. I didn’t know where you went after the funeral home. But you saw how packed the church was.”

“Richard, it’s awfully nice of you to think of me, but aren’t you expected at that luncheon?”

“Yes, but I wanted to check on you first. I know how much Jonathan meant to you.”

Lillian had originally met Richard Callahan on that first archaeological dig that she’d attended five years ago. A professor of biblical history at Fordham University, he had told her then that he’d studied to be a Jesuit but had withdrawn from the priesthood before taking his final vows. Now with a rangy body and easygoing manner, he had become a good friend, which somewhat surprised her. She knew it would be natural for him to be judgmental of her relationship with Jonathan, but if he was, he had never shown it. It was on that first dig that she and Jonathan had fallen desperately in love.

Lily managed a weak smile. “Richard, I’m so grateful to you, but you’d better get to that luncheon. Jonathan told me many times that Mariah’s mother is very fond of you. I’m sure it will be a help if you’re around for her now.”

“I’m going,” Richard said, “but, Lily, I have to ask you. Did Jonathan tell you that he believed he had found an incredibly valuable manuscript among the ones he was translating that were found in an old church?”

Lillian Stewart looked straight into Richard Callahan’s eyes. “An old manuscript that was valuable? Absolutely not,” she lied. “He never said anything about it to me.”

T
he rest of the day passed for Mariah in the merciful and predictable pattern of funerals. Now poised and beyond tears, Mariah listened attentively as her family’s longtime friend Father Aiden O’Brien, a friar from Saint Francis of Assisi in Manhattan, celebrated the Mass, eulogized her father, and conducted the graveside prayers at nearby Maryrest Cemetery. After that they went to the Ridgewood Country Club, where a luncheon had been laid out for those who had attended the Mass and funeral.

There were over two hundred people there. The mood was somber, but a Bloody Mary or two cheered everyone up and the atmosphere took on a more festive note. Mariah was glad because the stories she was hearing from people were about what a great guy her father was. Brilliant. Witty. Handsome. Charming. Yes, yes, she thought.

It was when the luncheon was over and Rory had started home with her mother that Father Aiden pulled her aside. His tone low, even though there was no one near them, he asked, “Mariah, did your father confide in you that he had a premonition he was going to die?”

The look on her face was obviously answer enough for him. “Your dad came to see me last Wednesday. He told me he had that premonition. I invited him into the friary for coffee. Then he shared
a secret with me. As you may know, he has been translating some ancient parchments that were found in a hidden safe in a church that has been closed for years and is about to be torn down.”

“Yes, I knew that. He mentioned something about their being remarkably well preserved.”

“There is one that is of extraordinary value if your father was right. More than just value in terms of money,” he added.

Shocked, Mariah stared at the seventy-eight-year-old priest. At Mass she had noticed that his arthritis was causing him to limp badly. Now his thick white hair accentuated the deep creases in his forehead. It was impossible to miss the concern in his voice.

“Did he tell you what was in the manuscript?” she asked.

Father Aiden looked around. Most people were standing up and saying their good-byes to their friends. It was obvious that they’d be making their way to Mariah to offer their final condolences, accompanied by a squeeze of the hand and the inevitable words, “Be sure to call us if you need anything.”