The Melody Lingers On (17 page)

As she spoke, Lane thought of Glady’s burst of generosity. At the last minute Glady had decreed that the room’s furnishings should not remind Anne of the fact that they had been used
for the servants. “It’s very pretty now,” she had told Lane, “but that doesn’t mean it can’t be just as attractive with a different color scheme.”

The couch was now in a sand shade, the chairs in a small floral pattern with a sand background.

Glady had chosen a Persian rug in red with a striking geometric pattern from one of the guest rooms that gave warmth and color to the room. “I know why the auctioneer didn’t grab
this,” she had told Lane. “Without speaking to me, the Bennetts hired some idiot who cut off the original fringe and replaced it with glaring white cording.” Glady later had had
that fringe replaced by one that had an antique effect.

Anne had been surveying the room with delight. “Oh, Lane, you just don’t know how much I love this place. I always felt like I was tiptoeing around the house for fear I’d break
something.”

It was eleven o’clock. “Lane, you’ve got to have a cup of coffee with me,” Anne said firmly.

There won’t be any chance that Eric will show up for lunch this early, Lane thought. “I’d love a cup of coffee,” she said sincerely.

She had had lunch in this kitchen a few weeks ago, but why did it feel as if she had been here many times? Lane asked herself. And why, even though she was sure Eric would not show up, did she
find herself listening for the door to open and let her know that he was there?

Anne Bennett looks so much better and more animated, she thought as Anne placed the cup of steaming coffee in front of her and poured one for herself.

She sat down opposite Lane and smiled. “I have to tell you how pretty you are,” she said. “And certainly Eric has said that to me one hundred times since he met you. Lane,
I’m about to be sixty-seven years old and I’ve always been somewhat timid. From modest circumstances, Parker fit in with people who were rich and socially prominent from impeccable
backgrounds. I never felt comfortable with those people. I always felt as though I was in a world where I didn’t belong. I feel that I
belong
in this house and that through church I
will get to make friends on my own.”

She looked away for a moment. When she looked back at Lane, her eyes were glistening. “What I have to say is my great concern is my son. These past two years have been absolute hell for
him. He lost many of his own accounts. He’s pointed at wherever he goes. He couldn’t have a dinner with you without being secretly photographed.”

She took another sip of coffee, as though she was trying to compose herself. But then her eyes filled with tears. “Lane, Eric is very much in love with you. He told me that he cut that
picture out of the newspaper and framed it for his apartment.”

Lane didn’t know what to say.

Anne sighed. “Remember that story about John Alden? He went to Priscilla to plead the case for her hand for his friend Captain Smith. Do you remember what Priscilla said?”

“She said something like, ‘Why don’t you speak for yourself, John?’ ” Lane answered.

“That’s right, and despite what Priscilla advised, I’m pleading for Eric. You surely know the consequences of being seen in public regularly with him. But is there a chance
that you can face that problem? Eric won’t ask you to do that, but I can. Think it over.”

Anne put down the cup and said, “Lane, you don’t have to respond now.” She reached into her pocket and pulled out a small folded sheet of paper. She passed it across the table
to Lane. “You probably have it already but here is Eric’s cell phone number. If he doesn’t hear from you, he will understand and never contact you again. And I guess you’ve
finished the last of the decorating, haven’t you?”

“Yes, we have,” Lane said quietly.

“Well then, this may be good-bye but I hope and pray it is not.”

Five minutes later, Lane was driving back to New York.

I don’t know what to do, she thought.

I simply don’t know what to do.

T
here was one kind of crook Joel Weber despised over any other. That was the one who in some way caused injury to a child. In his long career he
had dealt with a number of cases where someone deliberately murdered a child and tried to get rid of the body. It had been his savage pleasure to help convict them through the evidence he
uncovered.

Next on his list was a sophisticated thief who preyed on decent hardworking people who were diligently putting aside money for their retirement or to pay for their children’s college
expenses.

These were the little people who were sweet-talked by crooks like Bennett and ended up with nothing but the roof over their heads, if they were lucky. Sometimes not even that. A number of Parker
Bennett’s victims had taken mortgages on their homes because of his advice. Make your money make money for you—that was Parker Bennett’s pitch.

It was mathematically impossible for Parker to have done all the necessary paperwork alone. He had to have had at least one, if not two, people in on the scheme with him.

Joel had considered Bennett’s wife, Anne, as a possible co-conspirator. She and Bennett had worked in the same investment firm before he went out on his own. But she had retired after
their marriage forty-five years ago. When the fraud was discovered, she had been thoroughly investigated but nothing came of it. In the few years she had worked at the trading firm, she had been a
secretary, pure and simple. Her job had been to take dictation, type letters, and answer the phones.

In the years leading up to when the Bennett Fund failed and he disappeared, she hadn’t owned a computer. All the servants in Greenwich attested to that.

Her son, of course, was a different story. At twenty-two he had started his career in compliance at Morgan Stanley. That gave him technical training and access to that firm’s computer
database of statements, which he could have funneled to his father. Then Parker could have changed the names and some figures on the statements, put them on his firm’s letterhead, and sent
them out to his investors.

Joel had made a list of all the schools Eric Bennett had attended. They were the usual ones to be expected for a rich child with an excellent brain: Greenwich Country Day School through eighth
grade, Andover Prep in Westfield, Connecticut, and Magna Carta College in Montpelier.

In the middle of his first semester of his sophomore year at Magna Carta, Eric had withdrawn and switched to Trinity College in Dublin. He had graduated from there.

I can see why he might have wanted a year abroad, Joel thought, but why switch schools so suddenly? Did something go wrong at that point? Did he get in any kind of trouble? Was he staying out of
the country for any reason?

I’ll start there and see what I can find out, he decided.

The next day he drove up to Montpelier, Vermont, and went into the office of student affairs at Magna Carta. There he was politely told that records showed that Eric Bennett had withdrawn on his
own and there was no further information they could give him.

Dissatisfied, Joel walked over to the school library. On a hunch he looked up the list of benefactors to the school.

And found what he wanted. The same month Eric Bennett had abruptly left, his father, Parker Bennett, had made a ten-million-dollar donation to the college development fund.

P
arker Bennett began to make his final preparations for leaving St. Thomas. Two years ago he had disappeared from his life as Parker Bennett with
nothing but the clothes on his back.

Sometimes he wondered what had happened to the custom suits and jackets and ties and shirts and shoes in his closets in Greenwich. Did they sell or donate them? He hoped Anne wasn’t
sentimental enough to keep them and let them rot in the closet. His mother had done that when his father died. Good God, Parker thought. We had two clothes closets in that dreary apartment and one
of them was a shrine to that guy. Dropped dead of a heart attack after finishing his rounds as a postman. Only forty-seven years old, but a smoker. Every picture of him showed him holding a
butt.

This time Parker was going to be sure that the clothes he bought were as nondescript as possible. Zip-up winter jacket, cap with earmuffs, heavy shoes.

He still couldn’t be sure if he would make a date to meet Sylvie. He wasn’t sure if he could trust her. He knew he had made a mistake showing her how upset he was when she asked him
for two million dollars last week. The last thing he wanted was for her to think he was short of money. The next time she called he’d be much nicer and say, “Of course, dear, right
away.”

There was something else. He had read in the business section of the
Wall Street Journal
that the FBI was offering a two-million-dollar reward for information that would lead to his
capture.

That was a new wrinkle. That kind of reward wasn’t usually made public in cases like this. Was there any chance that Sylvie had let something slip? Maybe to one of her friends after a few
gin martinis? That possibility had always been lurking in the background of his mind, but now, with the announcement of the reward, it had become a full-fledged threat.

He had told people around here that he would be leaving in the next six weeks because of his job with the English government. He didn’t want to give them the sense that he was in any kind
of hurry.

It wouldn’t be suspicious to say that the timing had been moved up and that he was leaving at the end of the month.

He had a golf date with Len this afternoon. He had to make it. Then if Len did talk about his resemblance to Parker Bennett, he’d remind him of that guy who looked so much like Lyndon
Johnson that he posed for a whiskey ad and was paid to walk on the set of the Johnny Carson show and pass in back of Johnny without saying a word. This was when Johnson was in the White House.

Then he could always joke about the poem most people his age had read when they were in high school. It was about twins who looked alike. The last line was “And when I died they buried my
brother John.”

That should do it, Parker thought as he felt himself rebuilding his confidence in his ability to throw that self-styled joker off course.

And today he would regretfully tell him that he would be leaving soon to go back to England.

A
gent Jon Pierce, alias Tony Russo, had installed an eavesdropping system so sophisticated that even a sweep of Anne Bennett’s town house
would not have detected it.

He had done it the second Sunday when he saw Anne leave for Mass, the day he spotted the old black car driving past the town house. It had been easy to get into the house undetected. The
security system sensor was on the door leading from the garage into the den. Of course there was another one at the front door but there was no way he would take the chance on someone seeing him
going in there.

It had not taken him much time to bug the interior. When Anne Bennett arrived home, she did not know that every word she said in the living room, kitchen, dining room, bedrooms, and den would be
recorded.