The spectacular, p.30
The Spectacular, page 30
“Any news from the police on the case?” she asked, collecting herself enough to eat. She hadn’t had a bite all day and was starving. The roast duck was superb.
“The first step is for them to determine Martinek’s fitness to stand trial. That will take some time.”
“Do you think he should stand trial?”
“I think he’s mentally ill. But I guess the question is, was he unfit when all this began, sixteen years ago? It’s a fascinating case, really.”
“As long as he’s off the streets, I don’t care if he’s in a prison or an asylum.” She paused. “Oh my gosh, what if he ends up at Creedmoor? And you’re his doctor? Now, that would be a strange twist.”
Peter stiffened slightly. “Right, in fact, there’s been a development there.”
“What kind?”
“Like you, I was offered a new job today.”
“Really?” She could easily picture him working with the police, advising them on cases. In an exhilarating rush, she imagined them taking the city by storm together, meeting up over dinner in his loft at the end of the day to exchange stories. She remembered the way he’d gently stroked her hair when she was lying in his bed, and a shiver of desire ran through her.
“It’s with the FBI,” Peter said. “They want me to start up a new department that studies cases like the Big Apple Bomber and come up with criminal profiles. We’d handle cases across the country, not only in New York.”
“That is incredible, Peter. Congratulations. It sounds like we may have found jobs that are the perfect fit.” She lifted her glass and he did the same and they clinked them gently together. “If you ever need an assistant, you know where to find me. I’m sure I can run downtown from Times Square to advise you, when called for.”
Peter took a sip of his wine and put down his glass. “Actually, it’s in Virginia. Where the FBI headquarters are.”
“Virginia?”
“Yes.”
She couldn’t hide her disappointment. “You’ll be moving there?”
“It’s an opportunity that’s too good to pass up.”
The room blurred. He was moving all the way to Virginia. She’d never see him again. That explained his reaction to her kiss tonight. This was a breakup dinner.
After breaking up with Nathaniel, she was now on the receiving end.
“They sure reached out fast,” she finally said. “I mean, we only solved the case one day ago.” But the news had traveled far and wide, with a big headline in the New York Times this morning. It was no surprise he’d been snapped up.
“Apparently Captain Somers gave me a glowing recommendation when they called him this morning.”
“As he should.”
Visions of creating a life together evaporated. Had she imagined their connection all this time? No. The way he’d looked at her last night—hungrily came to mind—was completely different from his countenance now. What had happened to change things? Peter was the first man who’d taken the time to get to know her, who wasn’t either cowed or overexcited by the way she looked. She couldn’t lose him now.
The roast duck suddenly tasted dry. She wouldn’t be able to swallow another bite. “Oh. Well, maybe we could see each other when we’re both free. I mean, I’d have times that I’m not working, in between jobs. I could come to visit then.”
“Mounting a Broadway show has to be a huge undertaking. Who knows what the future holds, right? Besides, you have someone waiting for you back home, right? The guy with the flashy car?”
Was that a touch of jealousy in Peter’s question? Or was he relieved that it appeared she was already taken? She couldn’t tell what he was thinking. “No. I broke it off with him.”
“You did?” He looked at her with wide eyes.
Marion nodded, trying to add a cheery, breezy note to her voice. “Of course, like you said, who knows what’s ahead, right?”
“That’s true.”
The waiter came by, asking about dessert. They both declined. Later, outside, Marion stepped in front of him as he tried to hail a cab.
“Peter, what’s going on? I thought that we—”
He let his hand fall to his side. “We do, but—”
She didn’t want to hear what else was coming. Instead, she reached up and took his face in her hands and kissed him. He pulled her close, wrapping his arms around her waist, and they stayed like that for what seemed like minutes, lips on fire, pressed against each other. She hadn’t imagined it. And she didn’t want to let go.
She let her mind empty of everything but the heat of his breath and the strength of his embrace.
He pulled back first, looking at her as if he were memorizing her face. “I can’t, I’m so sorry.”
He didn’t love her. A panicked numbness swept over her as she absorbed his words, and she swayed a little on her feet. She thought she might be sick.
“Why not?”
“It’s hard to say. I want to tell you, but—”
She couldn’t bear his bumbling. She’d thrown herself at him—literally—and he had declined her invitation. They were nothing to each other, not even friends. Marion raised her arm up again and a cab raced to the curb. She avoided Peter’s eyes as she opened the door.
“I want to explain,” said Peter.
But Marion’s humiliation was complete. “No. I don’t want to hear it. I’ve had enough.”
She rolled down the taxi window all the way as she zoomed uptown, the sting of the cold air adding to the sting of her tears.
* * *
Marion woke with a throbbing headache. She was still confused about why her relationship with Peter had suddenly nose-dived. Maybe, because they had both lived through the roller-coaster ride of the past few weeks, it was destined to turn sour. He knew her at her worst, when she was grief-stricken and wild. That wasn’t what a man wanted in a partner. She’d hoped Peter would be different from most men.
She pushed him from her mind. That day, she was determined to track down her father. It was time to deal with the consequences of what she’d done, of what he’d done. First, though, she went to the Hoags’ office in Times Square to sign the contract for her new job. The salary was even more than she expected, and she’d be able to afford her own apartment, which was truly exciting. She’d miss Bunny and the girls at the Rehearsal Club, but it would be nice to come home to peace and quiet, not wake up to the ghastly vocal warm-ups of the musical theater actresses first thing in the morning.
The contract lasted a year, including an out-of-town tryout in Chicago. But it didn’t really make a difference whether she was in New York or Chicago, not when Peter would be far off in Virginia.
She’d be starting fresh, learning as she went along from one of the best choreographers in the theater.
But without Peter by her side. Why had he seemed so warm one minute, and then cold the next? She still couldn’t figure it out.
After an interminable train ride and a very cold walk from the station, she stepped up to the front door of her childhood home. No one answered her knock, so she pulled her key from her purse and unlocked it with a shaky hand. She was fearful for her father and angry at him all at the same time. Her insides roiled as she stepped inside and called out his name.
Nothing. The house was silent.
She moved through the rooms, going to the study first. His briefcase was on the couch and a bottle of whisky sat opened on the desk.
He wasn’t in the kitchen or upstairs. Only when she glanced out the window of her bedroom did she spot him. He was out back in one of the porch chairs, wearing his bathrobe, seemingly oblivious to the cold wind.
She opened the door to the backyard slowly so as not to surprise him.
His eyes were red, shoulders curved over. He’d lost weight recently and his cheeks were sunken. One hand held a glass of whisky, and the other was clenched in a tight fist. He looked up and straightened.
“Marion.” His voice was scratchy, as if it was the first time he’d spoken in a week. Dark stubble peppered his cheeks and chin.
“Dad. It’s freezing. You should come inside.”
“I’m fine.”
She drew her coat around her and took a seat on the other porch chair. It was strange how different the garden was in winter versus summer. May through September, the small lawn was enclosed in a bubble of green, the tall trees and shrubs forming a giant wall of flickering leaves. This time of year, the bare branches exposed the neighboring houses, the illusion of privacy completely gone.
Not that anyone with a sound mind would be out in their backyard today.
“It was you, right?” he said.
The time had come. “Yes. I found the file for George Martinek.”
“Stole it, from what I can gather. Dennis said you were with a man when you came to my office. Was that the police?”
“No. I was with the man who helped figure out who the bomber was, the doctor I told you about. Peter Griggs. And yes, I lied to Dennis. I’m sorry I had to do that.”
“You didn’t have to do anything.”
She couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “If I didn’t do something, Martinek would have kept on setting bombs until he killed someone else. Is that what you wanted?”
Instead of answering, Simon took a swig of his drink.
She went on the offensive. “Why didn’t you give the police the file in the first place?”
“I was ordered not to. Of course, that’s not what the top brass are saying now. Now, all the blame rests right on me.”
“I called your office and they said you’re no longer there. I’m sorry about that, I really am.”
He looked at her for the first time since she’d arrived. “How did you know? About the file?”
“I heard you and Judy talking about ‘dead files’ at the table one night. About moving them. That was before everything happened, so I didn’t put two and two together. Not at first.”
She expected him to lash out at her, but instead his eyes filled with tears.
“I’m sorry.”
“Oh, Dad.” She waited a beat before asking the question she most dreaded. “You knew, even before Judy’s death, that you might have the answer to who was setting the bombs in your archives, didn’t you?”
He closed his eyes for a moment. “We were told the police were grasping at straws and that if the files became public, Met Power would be liable to some serious lawsuits. It was a different time, back in the twenties and thirties, they told me. It could bankrupt the company if everyone who got hurt on the job back then got a chance to relitigate. Better to cover it up. And who knew if the killer even worked for Met Power in the past? There was nothing to prove that. We have disgruntled customers, of course, any big company does, so they figured it was one of them, not our problem.”
Marion thought of all the other blue-collar workers, the ones whose stories filled those boxes of files. The ones who didn’t go out and plant bombs but instead suffered in silence. From what she and Peter had read, Martinek’s injuries had been substantial and incredibly painful. Not that that gave him an excuse to do what he did, but how many others had been hoodwinked into missing deadlines and became destitute, lost everything?
“What if you’d been the one who had the accident?” she asked. “When you first got a job at Met Power, they had you out dealing with dangerous equipment, right? What if it had been you? Did you even bother to read through the files?”
Simon shook his head. “Some, not all.”
As if that excused him. “What about Judy? Did she know what the files contained?”
“Absolutely not. I told her they were employees who’d died. She had no idea. I would never have put her in that position.”
“What if she’d looked at them?”
“We have warehouses full of files, it wouldn’t have crossed her mind. She was a good secretary, did exactly what she was told, no more.”
Dear Judy. Thank goodness. But there was one question that bothered Marion most of all.
“What about after Judy’s death? Why didn’t you go through them then? Why wouldn’t you want to catch her killer?”
He seemed to shrink into the porch chair even more. His right hand, the one holding the glass, trembled, and he switched it to his left and put that one in his pocket. She could tell it was still shaking. Whether from cold or fear, she didn’t know.
Finally, he spoke. “After her death, and especially after you were attacked, you became my sole focus. I had to save you, keep you from harm. You were my priority, not some old files.” He cleared his throat. “But I suppose, if I’m being completely honest, I didn’t want to know. If we had a file on the killer the entire time, and I hadn’t come forward with it, then Judy’s death was my fault. How could I live with that? So I buried my head in the sand, and I was wrong. I know that now. It could have been stopped, but I didn’t do anything about it.” Tears welled up in his eyes.
“I still can’t believe you initially blamed me for luring her there in the first place. For putting her in danger.”
“It was the heat of the moment, and I’m so sorry. Please, Marion, I hate myself for what I said. I love you so much.” He winced, as if he were in terrible pain.
“If you’d had any kind of conscience at all, you would have gone through the files and handed them right over to the police, long before I became a Rockette, long before Judy sat in that theater seat.”
He wiped his eyes with the meaty part of his hand like a child. “I know that now. But I did this for you.”
“How?”
“If I didn’t do what they asked of me, I would have been out of a job. And it wouldn’t have been easy to get another. The corporate world doesn’t like whistleblowers. I had the two of you to support, and I wanted to make sure you were happy, especially after Lucille left us. That’s all I was thinking about, my two darling girls. Please believe me.”
“I know the truth about Mom’s time in Boston. You told her she couldn’t see us, threatened her with full custody. All because she wanted to follow her dream.”
“I shouldn’t have done that. But we had a perfect family, why did she have to abandon us? I tried my best, after she left. You were happy as a child, right?” He gestured with his right hand and then let it fall on his lap.
His fingers began to tremble in a rolling motion, as if he were rubbing something between his index finger and his thumb. As Marion watched, the rest of the arm joined in, flapping slightly, like a chicken wing.
“What’s going on?”
Simon looked down at his arm with an odd detachment, as if it didn’t belong to him. “One of the reasons I wanted you to marry Nathaniel was that it was important you be settled down. I knew I wouldn’t be able to care for you.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I have Parkinson’s disease,” he said. “I’m stiff and sore all over, and it’s only going to get worse. My balance is off, I’ve fallen twice already. Some days I can’t think straight.”
That explained the shaking she’d noticed at Tavern on the Green, when she’d thought he was hiding something. Her father was ill. Parkinson’s disease. She’d heard of it, but she thought it was something that old people got, and her father wasn’t old. “How long have you known?”
“Since the summer.”
In spite of everything, it made her heart ache that he’d felt the need to keep his diagnosis from her and Judy and lived with such terrible news in silence. “Are you sure? Maybe you should get a second opinion.”
“I’ve done that. I’ve seen every specialist I can. They all say the same thing. There’s no cure.”
That explained all his mysterious appointments and why he was so adamant that she and Nathaniel move in with him. His behavior of the past few months began to make some sense. He was desperate to know that Judy and Marion would be all right. “How fast will it progress?”
“They can’t predict. Eventually I’ll need full-time care. If I hadn’t gotten fired, I would have received it as part of my benefits. Now I’m on my own. Another reason to be sorry. I’ve mucked up everything.”
“Why didn’t you tell me or Judy? Why keep it a secret?”
“Denial, I suppose. Seems to be a theme here, right?” He let out a raspy laugh. “Judy knew something was wrong, but I always told her I’d had too much coffee or that I had a touch of vertigo. If I told you both, if I came out with it, then it would be real. I didn’t want it to be real. I saw doctor after doctor, hoping they were wrong.”
“Judy told me she thought you were having an affair, with all your mysterious appointments that weren’t in the calendar.”
A weak smile crept onto his face. “Now, that’s grand. I couldn’t keep anything from that girl. And I shouldn’t have kept all this from you.”
His shaking grew worse. “I’m sorry, Marion. I hope you can forgive me.”
Chapter Thirty-Three
After Simon’s confession, Marion sat with him in silence for some time.
Her father shivered. His tremor was growing worse the colder he got.
“Come inside,” she said, rising. “I’m making tea.”
Her father had made mistakes, justifying them by saying he was protecting his livelihood and, by extension, his family. Doing so had ended up destroying what they had and killing Judy. It was convenient for him to insist that the directives he’d been given by his superiors were nonnegotiable and that he hadn’t overseen the personnel administration department when George Martinek and the other workers were ignored or tricked into losing their deserved compensation. But he knew about it later and should have acted, even if it had cost him his job. As soon as he realized the police were looking for the dead files, he should have supplied them to the investigators, not hidden them away in a locked room.
