A Murderer Among Us Page 8

  They said good-night shortly after that. As Lydia rode home on the Long Island Rail Road, she realized she’d forgotten to ask what type of work Todd did. She sighed. It was just as well. Abbie was like her older sister in one way—totally resistant to prodding. Sweet as she was, she gave up information piecemeal, and in her own good time.

  * * *

  It was close to midnight when the train pulled into the Ronkonkoma station. Tired but exhilarated, Lydia noted the small crowd exiting the train. Proof positive that for many people the trip into Manhattan was an everyday occurrence. She headed for her car, determined to ride into the city again soon. Maybe she’d take in a show or visit a museum with Barbara and Caroline. Or perhaps she and Meredith would meet Abbie for dinner.

  As Lydia drove through Twin Lakes, she noticed many of the homes were dark, their owners either asleep or wintering in Florida. A man and a woman stood in Peg’s driveway beside a low-slung sports car. Were they embracing? As she turned into her driveway, the man waved and called out her name. Surprised, she saw it was Marshall Weill.

  Given their history, she couldn’t understand his friendly greeting. She wanted nothing to do with him. Still, they resided in the same small community and he’d just lost his wife. She waited while he crossed her lawn and lowered the passenger window to find out what he wanted.

  “Hi there, Lydia!” In the street light his shrewd eyes took in her leather jacket, glanced down at her skirt and boots. “Looks like someone was out on the town.”

  “I went into the city and met my daughter for dinner,” she said.

  “Oh? Not for a romantic rendezvous?”

  His comment grated on her nerves. “Did you want something? I’m tired and I need to go inside.”

  “Of course. I want to thank you for your kind note,” he said, his tone now serious and sad. “It means a great deal to me because you know what it is to suffer the loss of a beloved spouse.”

  Despite herself, she was moved by the emotion behind his words. “As I wrote, I’m sorry someone used my car to kill your wife so soon after”—she halted as she searched for innocuous words—“the blowup in the clubhouse.”

  He gave a low laugh. “You mean, after you exposed my past to our friends and neighbors.”

  She stiffened. “That I don’t regret! You have no business handling our HOA funds. Or anyone’s funds, for that matter—something I don’t expect you to understand.”

  “Oh, but I do! Once my head cleared, I realized your motives were for the good of the community. But I was wondering—have I somehow offended you personally?”

  When she didn’t respond, he went on, “If I have, I’m sincerely sorry for whatever pain I’ve caused you.”

  She glared at him. “The pain you caused will never go away. Allison Shaw was my sister.”

  “Was she?” He nodded as he remembered. “Poor thing, so sweet and terribly needy.”

  “Easy prey, wasn’t she? You moved right in—took her savings and seduced her while you were at it. Drove her to…”

  Lydia stopped in mid-sentence as Peg came to join them. She placed a hand on Marshall Weill’s arm as she greeted Lydia, her tone far from friendly.

  Lydia nodded, too agitated to speak. She pulled into the garage and clicked the garage door remote on her visor.

  Reggie was extremely vocal in expressing his annoyance for having been left alone all day. As she scooped cat food into a plate, Lydia took deep breaths to regain her equilibrium. What was the point of that scene? she scolded herself. Getting yourself all worked up, and for what? Even if that man—that monster—threw himself down on the ground, it wouldn’t make up for the damage he’d caused.

  She sat and sorted through her mail. The phone rang.

  “Hello, Lydia. This is Marshall. Don’t hang up, please,” he said quickly. “I need to tell you something.”

  “What is it?”

  He drew in a shaky breath, then spoke. “I swear to you, I never meant to hurt your sister. She was sweet, and the truth is, I fell for her in a big way. I told Allison from the start I’d never divorce Claire, but she called me constantly and said it didn’t matter. That she needed to be with me.”

  Lydia made no attempt to mask her bitterness. “And you obliged. How kind.”

  “It wasn’t kindness,” he said, sounding annoyed. “I told you, I cared for Allison.”

  “What about her savings? She was devastated when she learned you’d lumped them together with other investments and put everything in your name.”

  “That was stupid, I agree, but I told her in a few months she could have the money back with a gain of twenty thousand dollars. All she had to do was wait it out. And then—”

  “Then you were indicted, and all your shenanigans came to light.”

  “With all that was happening, I told Allison to sit tight. I’d get her money back for her just as soon as I could, but she thought I was lying. She grew more and more frantic, because I couldn’t spend any more time with her. I practically lived with my lawyer at my side.”

  “So Allison swallowed her meds and never woke up,” Lydia said harshly.

  “I’m sorry, Lydia. I don’t know what else to say.”

  She gave a sniff of a laugh. “I believe those are the first honest words I’ve heard you utter.”

  “I’ll send you a check for the amount of Allison’s money and then some.”

  Lydia opened her mouth to say she didn’t want anything from him, but that was foolish. The money he would be giving her belonged to her sister, not to Marshall.

  “All right.”

  “I’ll take care of it right away. And Lydia?”

  “Yes?”

  “I know you don’t want to be friends with the likes of me, but I hope now that you’ve aired your issues, we won’t have a scene every time we cross paths.”

  “I won’t be making any scenes, as you put it.”

  “Much appreciated, Lydia. Good-night.”

  Lydia returned to the task of reading her mail. She felt melancholy but strangely at peace—as though she’d closed the cover on a particularly sad book. She’d told Marshall Weill why she despised him, and he, in turn, had explained things from his perspective. While he hadn’t treated Allison right, he’d tried to make amends, and Allison—Allison couldn’t cope.

  A truth, one she’d been suppressing for as long as she could remember, forced its way through and demanded to be heard. Her sister had been fragile. Too fragile to live out in the world without the protection of loving family. She’d chosen independence and suffered the consequences. Marshall, for all his sleazy behavior, hadn’t caused her suicide. Allison had made the decision to take her own life.

  She’d been born when Lydia was twelve and Samantha was eight, a beautiful blonde baby whom they treated as their doll. For the first eight years of her life Allison was as pleasant and obliging as a doll, but then she turned finicky. She suffered from stomachaches, and though their parents took her from doctor to doctor, no one could determine the cause of her pain. When she was in fifth grade, one of the boys in Allison’s class—a child from a dysfunctional family with severe emotional problems—beat her up as she was walking home from school. Allison went into a decline. She was afraid to leave the house and refused to go to school. Her parents had to enroll her in a private school, where she fared well under the careful auspices of alerted administrators and teachers. There was another setback when she turned sixteen, and another at eighteen. But she managed to graduate with her class and insisted on going to an out-of-town college. Her parents agreed to a small college in Chicago because Samantha was already in law school at the University of Chicago. It took Allison six years to complete her undergraduate degree and several more until she got her M.S.W.

  Each time it was a disastrous male-female relationship—a short, wrong-from-the-start marriage and two affairs—that threw her into a black depression. After years of therapy and a job that promised to bring her joy, Allison was finally on firm ground. Until
she happened to attend a seminar led by Walter Mannes and fell under his spell.

  Later, as Lydia was brushing her teeth, she wondered what Marshall had been doing at Peg’s house. Was he handling her finances or had she invited him for a widower’s dinner? Or was it something else entirely?

  “They can’t be involved,” she said aloud. “It’s only been a few weeks since Claire died.” Unless, despite his rock-solid alibi, Marshall Weill had been responsible for his wife’s death. There was always the possibility he’d hired someone to do the deed.

  Because of an affair? Were Peg and Marshall having an affair? If so, when had it begun?

  Lydia yawned as the emotional and physical demands of her day drew her to slumberland. She closed her eyes, as all speculation regarding Marshall Weill and Peg DiMarco faded from her mind.

  Eight

  Meredith called her at seven-thirty the following morning, waking her from a deep sleep.

  “Hello,” Lydia croaked into the receiver.

  “Sorry, Mom!” Meredith apologized. “I thought you’d be up for your usual swim.”

  “I should be.” Lydia propped herself up on an elbow to see the clock. “I suppose traipsing all over Manhattan wore me out.”

  “How’s Abbie?”

  “She’s fine. Happy. I think she has a serious boyfriend.”

  “That’s nice. Listen, Mom, I know you’ve been watching the girls a lot lately, but do you think you could come over and stay with them for a few hours this afternoon?”

  Lydia felt her irritation rising. “I can’t, Meredith. If you’ll remember, I have a part-time job, and today happens to be one of the days I work.”

  Meredith let out a heartrending sigh. “I was up all night with Brittany. She must have caught a stomach virus because she kept throwing up. She’s fine now, but I kept her home from school.”

  “Poor little thing. She must have gotten what my friend Barbara had a few weeks ago. Can I speak to her?”

  Brittany sounded more subdued than usual. “Hi, Grammy. I’m eating applesauce for breakfast.”

  “How are you feeling?”

  “Better, but I’m sleepy. Are you coming over later?”

  Lydia thought quickly. She had nothing pressing to deal with this afternoon. Len wouldn’t mind if she left early and made up the hours on Thursday.

  “If you want me to.”

  “Oh, goody!”

  “I’ll bring a little surprise to cheer you up.”

  “Please bring something for Greta, too, or she’ll carry on.”

  Lydia smiled at her wise granddaughter. “Of course I will. Now let me speak to Mommy again.”

  When Meredith got on the phone, Lydia made it clear she’d leave work at three and could stay no longer than two hours. “There’s an open board meeting tonight, and I don’t want to miss it.”

  “Of course, Mom. Thanks so much!”

  Lydia turned on the shower in her spacious bathroom and wondered about her daughter. Meredith hadn’t mentioned where she was going and Lydia didn’t ask. Could it have something to do with her returning to work before her extended maternity leave was up? So far, Merry hadn’t mentioned the subject to Lydia, though she was quick to complain that Jeff would be working late again.

  Lydia felt a twinge of unease as she stepped into her bathing suit. Meredith struck her as more tense and restless than usual. Jeff was working long hours. Was he working hard to get ahead and provide for his family, or was work his way of distancing himself from a disapproving Merry? Or was he having an affair?

  She burst out laughing as she realized lately she’d been wondering whether many people were having affairs: Meredith, Jeff, Marshall, Peg. Were there really that many people driven by love and lust these days, or was she beginning to feel deprived of male company herself? Which made her aware of just how many days had passed since her last chat with Detective Molina.

  Lydia shortened her swim time so she could buy Brittany a book at Barnes & Noble on the way to work. She had a little cloth doll for Greta, which she’d bought weeks ago, one of many toys and small gifts she now kept on hand. As she stopped for a red light, she realized she should have put the doll in the car. No matter, she’d pick it up on her way to Meredith’s later.

  A change in Saturday’s wedding menu and the death of a ninety-year-old man scheduled to celebrate his birthday in the Linton Room on Sunday afternoon kept Lydia on the phone for most of the morning. Then her immediate boss—a pretty young woman named Jessica Holland who, age-wise, could have been Lydia’s middle child—required her assistance. At two forty-five, Lydia was clearing her desk when Len appeared and asked her to confirm arrangements with all outside vendors for that evening’s business conference.

  Lydia frowned. “Len, you said there’d be no problem if I left early today.”

  “You will leave early, Lydia. I promise. Make these calls and you needn’t make up the two hours tomorrow. It won’t take you more than half an hour at most.”

  Her glance swept past Jessica frantically riffling through papers to Len’s outer office where his secretary and the clerk worked. “Can’t Ginny or Mabel take care of this?”

  “Sorry, they’re busy with other things. Please, Lydia.”

  She gave an exasperated sigh. She was annoyed with Len for not keeping his word, with Meredith for being so demanding, and with herself for agreeing to babysit on a day when she was working. It wouldn’t happen again.

  “Okay, Len. Give me the phone numbers, etcetera.”

  He handed her a sheet of paper with everything neatly printed out. “This is a time-sensitive business. Problems crop up when we least expect them.”

  “So I see.”

  It was three-twenty when Lydia finished all she’d been asked to do. She raced to her car then took a minute to call Meredith on her cell phone to say she was on her way. Her daughter wasn’t at all happy with the delay.

  Meredith flung open the door before Lydia had a chance to ring the bell. She was wearing her new leather coat and had put on plum-colored eye shadow and liner that accentuated her lovely eyes.

  “Don’t you look lovely!” Lydia exclaimed. “Where are you off to?”

  Meredith offered a tight smile. When she spoke, her words sounded stilted. “I’m meeting a friend in crisis at the mall.”

  Lydia felt rebuked for prying. Damn it, she was only making small talk!

  Greta ran into the hall and grabbed Meredith around her knees. “Good-bye, Mommy.” She cocked her head to look at Lydia. “Hi, Grammy. Brittany said you brought us presents.”

  Meredith gently freed herself from her daughter’s grasp. “Greta, what did I tell you about asking for presents?”

  “Not to ask for them. But Grammy’s different, aren’t you, Grammy?” Greta flashed her adorable smile.

  She should be in TV commercials, Lydia decided with a grandmother’s pride. “Of course, I am,” she said, smiling back, then opened her mouth in dismay. In the rush of hurrying from one place to another, she’d forgotten Greta’s doll. Flustered by her omission, she paid scant attention to Meredith’s litany of instructions.

  “—Brittany fell asleep on my bed watching TV. Let her sleep. I’ll be back by five.”

  Meredith air-kissed Lydia’s cheek then departed. Lydia led her little granddaughter into the den and took her hand. “Greta honey, I have a present for you, only Grammy’s getting forgetful. I left it at home.”

  “Oh.” The large blue eyes cast down at the floor. “I want to get the present at your house.”

  “We will, only we can’t right now because Brittany’s asleep.”

  “Then let’s wake her up.” Greta pulled away, ready to put deed to words, but Lydia stopped her.

  “We can’t, honey. We have to let Brittany sleep because she’s been sick. We’ll get your present.”

  “When?”

  Lydia hesitated. “When she wakes up.”

  The usual sunny Greta turned truculent and whiny, insisting every five minutes tha
t Brittany had slept enough. A few times Lydia caught her halfway up the stairs, intent on waking her sister. She tried reading to Greta, but she wouldn’t sit still. She slipped a favorite movie into the DVD, but Greta had her mind on one thing only—getting her present.

  At her wits’ end, Lydia asked, “Why do you want your present so much if you don’t know what it is?”

  Greta shot her a brilliant smile. “Because you always give good presents.”

  “Now we’re going to play a game about your present,” Lydia said, making it up as she went along. “It’s a guessing game.”

  “Oh, goody!” Greta clapped her hands.

  “You have to guess what it is. I can only nod my head ‘yes’ and shake it for ‘no.’” Lydia moved her head both ways as she spoke. Greta giggled. Lydia sighed with relief. At last she had Greta’s attention.

  It took her granddaughter, whose mind was on animals and elves these days, some minutes to guess that her present was a doll. “Now, what kind of doll is it?” Lydia asked. As Greta tried her best to figure it out, Brittany crept slowly down the steps. She was wearing a nightgown.

  “Hi, Grandma, where’s Mommy?” she asked.

  “She went out for a while. Want something to eat?”

  “Some juice, please.”

  Lydia smoothed Brittany’s hair, then felt her forehead. She had a fever. “Sit down on the den couch and I’ll bring you some.”

  “Apple juice, Grandma. Oh, Grammy, thank you!” Brittany shouted when she spied the book Lydia had placed on the couch.

  Lydia smiled and brought Brittany her apple juice. “You’re welcome.”

  Brittany was already reading the first page.

  “Now we can get my present,” Greta said as she kicked the den table.

  “Don’t do that!” Brittany and Lydia said in unison.

  “Well, I’ve been waiting and waiting,” Greta complained.

  Lydia peered at Brittany. She appeared wan and listless, certainly not on her way to recovery as Meredith had described in her phone call this morning.

  “Do you feel up to taking a ride to my house to get Greta’s doll? You can stay in the car while I run in and get it.”