A reason to kill, p.43
A Reason To Kill, page 43
“I want to see where they’re headed.” O’Neill threw some bills on the table and quickly rose. “You finish, I’ll be back.” He headed for the door.
Ann shrugged, shoved her plate aside and motioning to the waitress to indicate the money, was on her feet and after Michael before he reached the door. “I hope you’re not going to make a scene?” she said.
The big man glanced down at her and suddenly grinned. “I’ll behave,” he said. “If I’m inclined to break Hal Dexter’s head, I’ll do it gently and not publicly.”
“Michael!”
“There’s a few thousand people on the boards right now, Ann. You think Dexter will even see me? I’ll be lucky if I spot them—and I’m looking. Soon as we get back to the compound I’ll give Terry a ring. I’ll have Sullivan check into what Dexter’s up too. If he’s out to hassle me because of Devlin? “ He left the idea, more like a threat, hanging.
~~~
It hadn’t taken a full twenty-four hours, before the sixty-five-year-old widow discovered she had taken on a tremendous chore with her seven-year-old grandson. Actually it began in the car as they pulled away from the O’Neill home. Gavin knelt staring out the rear car window, sniffling unpleasantly until the house disappeared from view. Then he huddled in the corner of the seat and only mumbled answers to the woman’s questions.
She spoke about his previous school thinking to draw him out; his replies were single words. She asked about his favorite electronic games since she’d purchased him an elaborate setup and hoped to play off this knowledge. But Gavin only offered titles. Baseball brought a glimmer of hope that died quickly as the boy said, “Mike takes me to the stadium—now I can’t go no more. Ann said I gotta stay with you for two whole weeks ‘cause that judge said so. Mizharris why are you making me go with you?” The blue eyes staring out of the small boy features were shinny with accumulating tears.
Candace Nelson’s knew her biggest problem in gaining custody lay in the fact the child did not want to be with her in any permanent arrangement. A short few hours visit and the many gifts were fine with him so long as he went home before dark. She realized that Michael O’Neill had been able to create a bond with this child whom she didn’t believe was his son while she, Gavin’s own flesh and blood, could not. Part of her failure, she was certain, lay in the fact she wasn’t allowed to tell the boy the truth. O’Neill demanded the right to do that when he felt Gavin was sufficiently recovered from the Clark’s deaths and she’d foolishly agreed.
“Gavin.” She smiled. “Mrs. Harris sounds so formal.” Actually she hated the way it sounded coming from the small mouth mimicking Michael O’Neill’s tones. “You could call me grandmother or something like that.”
Gavin pondered a moment then said, “My grandma Clark is my real daddy’s mama and my mommy’s mama is in heaven. Are you Mike’s mommy?” He did not understand why the petite black lady nearly choked. Nor why he heard a sharp laugh from the dark skinned driver.
When she simply said no without explanation the child accused, “Mizharris don’t you know grandmas are mommies of daddies and mommies?”
The well-qualified nanny Candace Nelson hired was not Ann Ryan. “Ann’s my friend, she takes care of me.” Gavin immediately informed both the strange lady and his grandmother. He wanted no part of this Miss Loraine and openly ignored her best efforts to entertain him throughout the first afternoon.
When Miss Loraine had fixed his before dinner bath, and attempted to help him undress, Gavin threw a tantrum. “You get out! Out!!” He screamed as if she were a certified pervert. He flung the soap and toweling at her until he drove her from his bathroom then locked himself in. The yelling brought the grandmother and the distraught women stood on the outside of the locked door, pleading like two imbeciles promising the boy the moon, the stars, and even heaven to no avail.
Also drawn by the racket, the male caretaker took the hinges off the door and managed to grab the fleeing little creature before he could escape.
“I take showers like Mike!” Gavin screeched at the women as he struggled in the man’s firm hold. “I don’t take baby baths! An Ann don’t gawk at me!”
The caretaker offered to stand watch in Mrs. Nelson’s bathroom, since the child’s didn’t have a shower, and see the boy didn’t drown. So peace was temporally restored.
At dinner Gavin ate a few mouthfuls of chicken soup, but then only played with the veal Cordon bleu the cook had taken tremendous pains to cut into shapes that would appeal to a youngster. When Miss Loraine attempted to correct this behavior, the boy ignored her and said to his grandmother, “I want a hot dog.”
Of course the cook couldn’t immediately provide such a thing but Gavin did settle for peanut butter and jelly followed by a big dish of ice cream—which Miss Loraine had warned earlier would only be provided if Gavin finished his proper meal.
Candace Nelson had seen to it herself that Gavin was put to bed in the attractive redecorated nursery where once his mother, as a small child, had slept. But she woke in the early morning hours to find the boy curled up like a puppy by the rear patio door. Obviously Gavin had attempted to escape only to find the doors all secured and no way out. His eyes were rimed in red and his small face swollen by a long siege of sleeplessness and tears.
Again the caretaker came to the rescue. The man carried the exhausted child back to his room while Gavin sobbed, “I want Mike. I wanna go home.”
Nature allowed some relief and the boy slept. It was nearly one pm when…
“You should let me wake him.” The experienced nanny warned. “He will never sleep tonight.”
But no way was Candace Nelson about to allow anyone to deliberately disrupt this peaceful reprieve by waking her grandson. “Perhaps if he sleeps off this upset Gavin will be more manageable.”
“I doubt it,” Miss Loraine, the nanny, said. “So long as the child knows all he has to do is throw a temper tantrum to get his way, he will continue to do so.”
“Well he didn’t get his way, did he? He is still here.” Candace did not admit how close she came to loading Gavin in the car and returning him to O’Neill and a full twenty-four hours hadn’t passed yet. In two weeks I’ll be certified insane, she thought, but only said the anger sharp in her tone. “How did he get past you last night?”
“I was exhausted.” Miss Loraine’s tired features still showed the evidence. “I have never had to pamper to a child’s every demand before. If this continues I shant remain.”
“We have a contract.”
“That allows some personal time and most assuredly doesn’t not state that I’m to be a slave to a seven-year-old. That boy has been spoilt beyond belief. I don’t think he has ever been corrected or denied anything. This other nanny of his must be a fool.”
“Ann Ryan’s not his nanny.” Candace grinned at the idea of what the lady in question would think if she heard herself described in that manner.
“Well, if he’s allowed to call his parents by their first names no wonder he has no respect…”
Not wishing to discuss the relationship with hired help, Candace simply stated, “You might want to take this opportunity for a small rest yourself.”
No sooner had the woman retired to her own quarters than Candace Nelson placed several calls. After being informed by the first agency that it would be impossible to find a replacement this time of year and after all Loraine Putnam was one of their most sought after employees. And they couldn’t believe such a thing was possible…of course they wouldn’t think to call her a liar but…
Candace Nelson hung up and called another agency…and another… eventually she called in a favor.
~~~
At the Conners’ summer home, the women had been planning the upcoming affairs for days. Though blessed with staff to handle the labor, Catherine Connors never allowed the control of any entertaining that bore their name to leave her hands. The wedding of her favorite cousin could not be sandwich in during the hassle of campaign and election activities.
And though Michael O’Neill huffed at the nonsense, after all they weren’t a couple of love sick kids, he reminded more than once, still he secretly enjoyed the fuss.
The actual wedding would be in New York, the following spring, but the discreet dinner party to announce their engagement was planned for the last week in August here on the island. Ann was reacting like a college girl and he found himself often smiling tolerantly at what he thought was foolishness.
To escape the planning, John Connors had offered the men a cruise up the coast and an afternoon of gambling in the private rooms at the Atlantic City casinos. Michael O’Neill rarely gambled for when he did he usually lost. So while the other men already were engaged in the ship’s cabin, discussing politics and laying down their poker chips, he strolled around the deck, his eyes always straying to the wide Atlantic and his mind filling with memories of years past.
Three times has to be the charm. He grinned. He remembered now the times when he’d decided to marry Ann. The first had been his elaborate scheme one Easter. God that was back in ‘76. He was going to marry her in Rome…hopefully at the Vatican…if luck was with him, he’d manage to get the Pope or at least a cardinal to bless their union. No family, no friends, just the three of them. Deirdre threw a frigging tantrum and wouldn’t go.
At the time He was getting these vibes that Tom was attempting to move-in on Ann—and she seemed receptive. Then Andrea told him she was pregnant…At first she thought he should give the kid a name, hell, he didn’t believe the kid was his. He told her to get an abortion. The idea of marriage at that point became distasteful.
It was nearly five years before he was tempted again. Ann had taken off to attend some wedding in England. He expected her to return in two weeks and made the arrangements himself. He’d taken the rings he’d purchased in ‘76 out of the bank’s vault, and placed them with plane tickets to Nevada and a bottle of champagne with two engraved goblets Ann and Mike 1981 on a table at the main door. He had Stella lock the back so Ann would have no choice but to come through the front.
Ann didn’t come back and a month later she was married, only to someone else. A courier took the rings back to the bank and he got drunk and smashed the glasses.
“Three times has to be the charm,” he murmured. He’d let nothing interfere this time.
Now he saw two men on the small motorboat waving like insane creatures as they headed towards the large ship. “You got a radio!!!” they were yelling.
~~~
Since that frantic call by Candace Nelson, Hal Dexter had been spending most of his free time in Ocean city, New Jersey. It had been that or forget seeing his wife for several weeks. When the judge’s widow first called pleading for help, the young couple had planned on spending the weekend.
Tanya Dexter, a petite beige skinned twenty-five-year-old with a ready smile and bubbly personality had hit it off so well with Gavin that she called in some favors and had taken time off from her own job. Of course Mrs. Nelson was more than generously compensating her. But it left Hal doing a lot of commuting. And a lot of worrying—he could still get a queasy feeling when he thought about the first time he spotted O’Neill on the boardwalk. He’d been sure the big son of bitch was headed towards them. A quick vision of that motel room in New Mexico flashed in his mind and he saw himself suddenly airborne over the Atlantic without a plane.
But an angel was on his side, and apparently O’Neill didn’t spot them, for when O’Neill’s girlfriend caught up with him and took his arm they headed into a small novelty store. Luckily, Gavin didn’t see his father and Dexter was able to usher his own party in the opposite direction.
Chapter 80
New York, 1984
The time spent at the beach also brought Hal Dexter into contact with a number of South Jersey detectives. For like any profession similar employment attracts people to each other. So the story he was repeating to his partner in New York this morning was accurate. “Although the gold Celtic cross engraved with the year of her sixteenth birthday and the words my special princess, given to her by her father, was identification enough still they are forced to wait for the tests to confirm what’s left of the body is indeed Sheila Connors Beechen.”
“Christ,” Terry Sullivan said. “I’ve seen some strange things happen but the remains washing up on that island? Christ,” he repeated.
“Weird all right and that’s not the half of it. The crack in the skull sure didn’t come from hitting the water. So even though it’s impossible to tell if she drown that fracture and the location of the remains suggests it wasn’t suicide. No way could her body have floated there from where they found the lifeboat or the small yacht for that matter. So she didn’t go out on the water by herself. But somebody took that yacht to a new location and probably disabled it; and that somebody brought the lifeboat to swimming distance from shore. The whole scenario spells murder.”
“Or an accident that someone tried to cover up.” Sullivan offered. “Could be she went in the water and whoever was with her couldn’t find her and panicked. Seriously, who would have reason to kill Shelia Beechen?” Sullivan tapped his fingers on the edge of the desk. “Have the Jersey boys let this out to the press yet?”
“The morning papers will probably release the news of whose body was found. I don’t think they’ll say anything about foul play yet.” Dexter shook his head and motioned towards Sullivan’s hand. “Wish you’d cut that out it drives me bonkers.”
“A pity.” Sullivan grinned but continued to tap. “Think it was the husband?”
“Not unless he did it long distance. Remember Beechen left for England the day before she disappeared. Of course he’d make an excellent suspect seeing as how he’s dead himself—save the taxpayers a lot of money.” Dexter went over to the other side of the evidence room and returned with two cups of fresh coffee. He shoved the cup of black coffee towards Sullivan’s tapping fingers with the suggestion, “play with this it makes less racket.”
“Lousy timing.” Sullivan lifted his cup and took a swig. “The Connors clan is going to be royally pissed. Headed for the final countdown to the election and now this?”
“You know Terry.” Dexter sat back down on the other side of the table. “I have this suspicion that Shelia’s and Andrea’s deaths are somehow connected.”
Terry Sullivan gave out a deep groan before he answered. “You, Hal, have a gut feeling that every murder that takes place is connected to the Nelson killing. Suppose you already filled the Jersey boys in on Devlin?”
“Just clued them in on a few facts. Talking about weird.” He gave a short dry laugh. “You know whose yacht it was those guys that found the body flagged down to radio the police?” He watched the astonishment register on Sullivan’s face as he finished. “Connors. And not only was his Lordship John and attending male family aboard but so were O’Neill and Devlin.”
Chapter 81
New Jersey, 1984
The exodus from the Connors’ compound began almost at once. The New York gathering of the clan around Raymond Connors and his wife would be completed before the information about finding Shelia’s body hit the news media.
Ann Ryan, forced to hide her disappointment, watched them scurry away. Her engagement party canceled. All thoughts of her coming wedding tabled in deference to the impact the news was going to have on the parents and the public.
Shelia had upstaged her. It wasn’t that she didn’t feel for the agony her friend must have suffered. She shivered with the thoughts of Shelia struggling all alone in that dark cold water. The horror was so much more real now than when Shelia had just been missing.
The effect this was having on Michael was frightening. She could see him closeted with Thomas Devlin on the glass-enclosed rear porch of the main house. They almost appeared to be arguing, but she knew that wasn’t the case. The sometimes violent movements of Michael were caused by the emotions he suppressed. He couldn’t give way to the pain he must feel like Shelia’s brothers did. He couldn’t cry and carry on like William or sit and silently shed quiet tears in the manner of John.
~~~
O’Neill had kept his emotions in check until the Connors’ departed; now he was fully expressing them. He had hit the walls and everything else in the pine wood room so many times, as his curses fouled the air, that Devlin was surprised the walls were still standing and nothing had broken.
Devlin waited until the initial tantrum subsided before he offered, “Mike we’ll still pull things together. I already talked to some research people who deal in this Oceanic stuff. They have a couple of explanations for the circumstances—”
“Fuck it!” O’Neill’s face was livid. “You’re not pacifying John Connors—it’s me your talking to. Some bastard murdered Shelia. They murdered her for one reason—’cause she was becoming a liability. A sad drunk with a loose mouth who might spill some shit about her family. Did Shelia know about Andrea?”
“I don’t know Mike. You forgetting I didn’t know the whole truth when Andrea died. Now this business about Shelia? It’s got me wondering maybe Dexter isn’t so far off key. Maybe the judge didn’t blow his own brains out.” Devlin’s normally calm exterior was beginning to desert him. Why couldn’t some shark or whale have devoured Shelia entirely; why did just the little fishes nibble her flesh and organs? Damn if this wasn’t really complicating matters.
“What made you bring Nelson up?” O’Neill eyed him suspiciously. “Shelia was still alive then.”
“True, but according to James she’d been drinking steady since Andrea’s death. In fact she had the whole family in an uproar with her crazy drunken calls. Then Andrea’s diaries surfaced mysteriously. Several of us were with Raymond Connors when Al Nelson called in a tiff the night he died.”
