The Melody Lingers On (22 page)

“Well, I have a surprise for you,” Len said. “Dewayne and Bruce and I enjoyed playing golf with you so much that we decided we wanted you to join us on Monday. Let’s have
a final round of golf at nine o’clock and then we’ll have lunch at the course. Don’t say no, I’ve already made the reservation.”

I wish I could strangle him, Parker thought. Of course he could simply say he was too busy getting ready to leave, but something warned him to be careful and to go along with Len’s
unwanted farewell.

Even though it was perfect sailing weather and he spent all day Sunday on the boat, he was not able to enjoy the feel of the water’s spray, the gliding of the boat through the water, the
clear blue sky, the occasional drifting cloud. Everything was anticipation of the final meeting with Len. He had hoped that it would rain on Monday, a steady persistent rain, but of course it could
not have been a more perfect day.

At nine
A.M
. the foursome teed off. Parker liked the two men who accompanied Len. Bruce Groom was a retired executive in one of the drug companies; quiet, intent on his
game, he said very little. Parker had the feeling Bruce did not have the slightest interest in Len’s comparison of George Hawkins to Parker Bennett.

Dewayne Lamparello rounded out the foursome. He had the highest handicap of the group but even that could not help his game. Quite simply, he was a lousy golfer, far less interested in inane
chatter than seeing that his next shot was not another ground ball.

Len did not bring up the subject of Parker Bennett at all. Parker was beginning to relax, and by the time they sat down to lunch, he was sure he didn’t have to worry anymore.

As was to be expected, Len led the conversation. He had been a minor executive in a cereal company.

“I used to say my nickname was ‘Snap, crackle, pop,’ ” he joked, referring to the famous tagline of a Kellogg cereal.

Snap, crackle, shut up, Parker thought, but admitted to himself that he would much prefer this tedious chatter to a replay of a discussion about Parker Bennett.

But when the others ordered a second coffee, he decided he could gracefully get away.

“Well, I really do have to get going,” he said. “Len, I think this was great and I thank you. I am sure you understand that I’ve got quite a checklist to go over before
my departure.”

“Are you going to rent the house?” Len asked. “Because if you are, I know someone in the market for a good rental.”

“No, I am not,” Parker replied. “I want to know it’s available to me any time I can get away.”

“You could do a week-to-week,” Len persisted. “You would make a lot of money.”

“Again, I have thought about it but have absolutely decided against it,” Parker said firmly.

As he stood up to leave he smiled warmly.

“Thanks so much, Len. Bruce, Dewayne, great to play with you again. I hope to see you on the links when I get back. Len, next time lunch is on me.” Careful not to seem too hurried,
Parker turned toward the exit of the dining room. He had just reached the door when Len shouted, “Hey, Parker.”

He spun around and realized too late he had been trapped. In an instant he tried to make a recovery.

With a hearty laugh, he shouted back, “You and your jokes, Len.”

The other diners had looked up. How many of them would make the connection? Parker spent the rest of the afternoon willing himself to remain calm while fully expecting a knock on the door and
the arrival of the police. But no one came and at eight o’clock the next morning, he was on his way to the airport.

The plane to Miami was leaving on time. As he showed his boarding pass to the attendant, he thought with regret that this would be the last time he was able to fly using the name George Hawkins.
He probably would never set foot in St. Thomas again.

A
t the insistence of her cousins, Eleanor and Frank Becker made the forty-minute drive from Yonkers to New City in Rockland County for Thanksgiving
dinner. Her cousin Joan was her age. Joan’s husband, Eddie, was a retired detective. Their two children along with their spouses and four grandchildren made for a festive group.

Eleanor knew it was good for her and Frank to have decided to visit them instead of staying home for another solitary holiday. She liked Joan’s family and could feel the sincerity in the
warmth with which they greeted her and Frank.

At dinner they studiously avoided any reference to the current situation. It was only when the children had left the table and the adults were lingering over a cup of coffee that the subject was
broached.

It was Eleanor who brought it up.

“I know you’re all too polite to ask but I think you may be interested in this.” She told them about going under hypnosis and how far she had gotten in trying to remember the
name she had seen on that British driver’s license.

“The first name was George,” she said firmly. “But I simply cannot remember the last name.”

“It could make all the difference in the world,” Eddie commented. “I know about that from when I was in the department. Of course I never worked that area. I was on the street
doing undercover work.”

“What’s it like to be hypnotized?” Joan asked.

“It wasn’t so bad,” Eleanor answered. “In fact, it was kind of peaceful, and trust me, the way things are going these days, sometimes I think that I wouldn’t mind
being hypnotized all the time.”

“You’d get sick of going up and down in the elevator,” Frank said wryly. It was the first time in months Eleanor had heard him joke about anything.

Maybe if I could just not be so tense all the time, she thought. Maybe I could
make
myself remember.

It was reassuring to have Eddie tell her, “Eleanor, I know how you must be feeling. I have seen innocent people under a cloud of suspicion by the authorities living in a constant state of
fear. When are you going back to the hypnotist?”

“I am not sure,” she said. “I know how disappointed they were in me. Maybe I just told them something because I wanted to be able to tell them something. Frank, remember when
you got stopped in the car because the cop said you had gone through a red light in Manhattan?”

“I remember,” Frank said angrily. “I didn’t go through any red light. It was still on yellow. That cop had a quota to fill; that’s why I was stopped.”

“Frank, I’ve heard that song before,” Eddie commented.

“Well, what I mean is when the cop asked Frank for his driver’s license, he gave him his credit card by mistake. For a minute he thought Frank was trying to bribe him.”

“He must have been a real rookie,” Eddie observed dryly. “You don’t try to bribe a cop with a credit card.”

“The reason I remember,” Eleanor continued, “is because maybe I’m mixing up seeing him give the wrong card to the cop with what I think happened in Parker Bennett’s
office. The point is I don’t think it will do any good to go back to the hypnotist. Actually, being hypnotized wasn’t a bad experience. It’s dreading doing it, then making a fool
of myself. When I look back on it, I really don’t like being out of control. It was scary somehow to know someone is exploring your mind, and you’re giving answers that perhaps
aren’t even true but just made up.”

“I think you’re making a mistake, Eleanor,” Eddie said quietly. “No one is expecting you to be able to give a complete picture. That would be totally unrealistic. Why
don’t you go back to that doctor? You have nothing to lose and certainly nothing to fear.”

His concern and warmth made Eleanor realize how foolish she had been to withdraw so completely from her immediate circle of family and friends. She had been so sure that under a veneer of
sympathy they were judging her as being a part of Parker’s elaborate scheme. Over these past two years the newspapers had alleged that she was in on the fraud. Some pretty convincing
editorials had been published. “There had to have been another person involved in the fraud,” the newspapers had screamed over and over again. She spoke of that now to Joan and
Eddie.

“Anyone who knows me well enough would know that I was not capable of being the other person behind that fraud,” she said sadly.

And then the inevitable question came.

“What about Eric?”

Eleanor answered slowly, “I saw absolutely no indication that he was involved. They have not found one penny in his name that he could not prove had been earned honestly. I know he was
very close to his father, but nobody was more shocked and upset when all of this came out than Eric. He broke down and cried in front of me, and believe me, that emotion was genuine. No one is
that
good an actor.”

A short time later, as they were getting their coats on to start for home, Eddie spoke softly.

“Eleanor, please accept my advice. Go back to that hypnotist. Please. You will be doing yourself a favor. Again, you have nothing to lose. I know what I’m talking about. Do it for
yourself. Do it for Frank. Please.”

“Maybe I will,” she said hesitantly. “Let me think about it.”

O
n Monday morning Lane arrived at the office to find Glady in a foul mood.

“I’m beginning to wonder if La-di-da is running out of cash,” was her greeting to Lane. “She owes us two million dollars more, and stupidly I put those paintings and
sculptures in the apartment before I got paid for them. Lane, I’m telling you that lady is cash poor.”

“Then why on earth did she sign up for five million dollars’ worth of interior decorating?” Lane asked incredulously.

“I think because she was so used to having an unending source of cash,” Glady answered. “And now maybe it’s drying up.”

“But if Parker is supporting her, he got away with over five billion dollars. Surely five million is nothing to him,” Lane argued.

“Well, two million dollars is a lot to me,” Glady snapped, and looked down at her desk, indicating that Lane should clear out of the office.

What a day this is going to be, Lane thought. She knew that when Glady was upset she took it out on everyone around her.

An hour later Glady went out to the reception area and screamed at Vivian because her desk looked as if she was “camping out on it.”

Lane knew that Vivian had been given the job of cutting out pictures of celebrity homes so that Glady could keep up to date with what other designers were doing.

Fortunately for Lane, Glady sent her out to one of the smaller jobs, supervising the installation of window treatments and furniture at the newly renovated executive office of the CEO of a food
chain.

It was a windy, cold day again, and as Lane supervised the job, her mind was ceaselessly filled with random thoughts about Ken.

The anniversary of Ken’s death was next week. Probably that was why her memories were so distinct. She thought of their wedding at Saint Malachy’s, the so-called actors’ chapel
on Forty-Ninth Street in the theater district of Manhattan. She could vividly see herself at the altar exchanging vows with him. Her mother had wanted her to be married at their church in
Georgetown.

I turned her down flat, Lane remembered. I certainly didn’t want to walk down the aisle on Dwight’s arm. That’s another way I slammed my mother in the teeth. I wore a simple
white dress. Ken wore a business suit, and we had dinner for thirty friends after the ceremony. My mother came alone. Dwight was away, but she knew I didn’t want him there.

Another thought that kept churning in her mind was that she and her mother had been very close in those ten years after her father had died. That had all ended when Dwight came into their lives.
She wished she could put these thoughts out of her head. But she again wondered how she would feel if Katie, at age seventeen, for some reason, began to reject her. The trip to Washington had
opened a door that she was not happy to go through. She was not able to dislodge those thoughts.

It was with a sense of anticipation that evening that Lane left Katie with Wilma at six o’clock and started to drive to New Jersey. This time she met Eric at Bella Gente, in Verona, the
next town over from Montclair. He had asked her on their first date if she liked Italian food. She had answered with a completely truthful yes. When she and Glady took a client out to lunch, Glady
always chose a high-end New York restaurant. Lane would never have dreamed of telling her that she and maybe even the client would have much preferred a plate of pasta with a simple tomato and
basil sauce to any of the signature dishes on the menus of those establishments. She thoroughly despised truffles, which seemed to be the favorite food of so many sophisticated diners. But it had
seemed easy to her to confess that to Eric, who had laughingly agreed. He felt the same way.