Daddy's Little Girl

  The statement said that the only exceptions were small bequests to her son, some friends, and longtime employees. Her grandson was left only one dollar.

  “She was very smart, you know,” the woman confided to me, “I heard some reporters talking. Besides her lawyers, she had her pastor, a judge who is a friend, and a psychiatrist as witnesses that she was of sound mind and knew exactly what she was doing.”

  I’m sure that my gossipy informant did not realize that my Website probably triggered both the will change and the heart attack. It was a hollow victory for me. I remembered that gracious, stately woman offering condolences for Andrea’s death the day of the funeral.

  I was glad to escape into the elevator before a reporter recognized me and connected me with the breaking story.

  * * *

  MRS. STROEBEL was already in the corridor waiting for me. Together we went into Paulie’s room. His bandages were now much smaller. His eyes were clearer, and his smile was warm and sweet. “My friend, Ellie,” he said. “I can count on you.”

  “You bet you can.”

  “I want to go home. I’m tired of being here.”

  “That’s a good sign, Paulie.”

  “I want to get back to work. Were there many people in for lunch when you left, Mama?”

  “Pretty good crowd,” she said soothingly, with a contented smile.

  “You shouldn’t be here so much, Mama.”

  “I won’t have to be, Paulie. You’ll be home soon.” She looked at me. “We have a little room off the kitchen at the store. Greta has put a couch and television in there. Paulie can be with us, do whatever he feels up to in the kitchen, and rest in between.”

  “Sounds good to me,” I told them.

  “Now, Paulie, explain what it is that worries you about the locket you found in Rob Westerfield’s car,” his mother encouraged.

  I simply didn’t know what to expect.

  “I found the locket and gave it to Rob,” Paulie said slowly. “I told you that, Ellie.”

  “Yes, you did.”

  “The chain was broken.”

  “You told me that, too, Paulie.”

  “Rob gave me a ten-dollar tip, and I put it with the money I’d saved for your fiftieth birthday present, Mama.”

  “That’s right, Paulie. That was in May, six months before Andrea died.”

  “Yes. And the locket was shaped like a heart, and it was gold and it had pretty blue stones in the center.”

  “Yes,” I said, hoping to encourage him.

  “I saw Andrea wearing it, and I followed her to the garage and saw Rob go in after her. Later I told her that her father would be angry, and then I asked her to go to the dance with me.”

  “That’s exactly what you said earlier, Paulie. That’s the way it happened, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, but something is wrong. You said something, Ellie, that was wrong.”

  “Let me think.” I tried to reconstruct the conversation as best I could. “The only thing I remember that you didn’t just mention is that I said Rob didn’t even buy Andrea a new locket. He had the initials of their first names, Rob and Andrea, engraved on a locket some other girl had probably dropped in his car.”

  Paulie smiled. “That’s it, Ellie. That’s what I needed to remember. Rob didn’t have the initials engraved on the locket. They were already there when I found the locket.”

  “Paulie, that’s impossible. I know Andrea did not meet Rob Westerfield until October. You found the locket in May.”

  His expression became stubborn. “Ellie, I remember. I am sure. I saw them. The initials were already on the locket. It wasn’t ‘R’ and ‘A.’ It was ‘A’ and ‘R.’ ‘A.R.,’ in very pretty writing.”

  43

  I LEFT THE HOSPITAL with the sense that events were spinning out of control. Alfie’s story and the diagram I had put on my Website obviously had the desired effect: Rob Westerfield had been cut out of his grandmother’s will. By doing that, Mrs. Westerfield might just as well have erected a sign saying, “I believe my only grandchild planned the attempt on my life.”

  That heartbreaking realization and painful decision had undoubtedly caused her to have the massive heart attack. At ninety-two, it seemed unlikely to me that she could possibly survive.

  Again I remembered the quiet dignity with which she had walked out of our house after my father ordered her to leave. He was the first to humiliate her because of her grandson. Or was he? Arbinger had been the school that her husband, the senator, had attended. It seemed doubtful that she would have been unaware of the reason Rob was asked to leave there.

  The fact that she changed the will and took every precaution to see that it could not be legally challenged meant to me that she not only believed he had planned the attempt on her life, but also at last might even be convinced that Rob was responsible for Andrea’s death.

  Which of course brought me to the locket.

  The locket already had the initials “A” and “R” engraved on it before Rob met Andrea.

  That fact was so stunning, so utterly out of context with everything I had been thinking, that for the first few minutes after I left Paulie, I had to let it sit in my mind until I could get used to it.

  The gray morning had evolved into an equally gray afternoon. The car was at the far end of the hospital’s visitors’ parking lot, and I walked briskly to it, my coat collar turned up as protection against the damp, cold wind.

  I drove out of the hospital grounds and realized that the beginnings of a headache were being caused by the fact that it was one-thirty, and the last time I’d eaten was seven-fifteen this morning.

  As I drove, I began looking for a coffee shop or restaurant and passed several that looked pretty good. The reason I kept passing them became evident when I rejected still another popular luncheon spot. It was because being out in public in Oldham made me feel vulnerable now.

  I went back to the inn, glad to be there and equally eager to be on my way to the anonymity of downtown Manhattan. Mrs. Willis was at the desk and handed me an envelope. I knew it was the obituary notice that Joan had left for me.

  I took it upstairs, phoned room service, ordered a club sandwich and tea, and then sat down in the chair that overlooks the Hudson. It was the kind of view Mother would have loved, with the palisades rising in the mist, the water gray and restless.

  The envelope was sealed. I slit it open.

  Joan had clipped the obituary from the Westchester News. It read:

  Cavanaugh: Genine (née Reid) in Los Angeles, Ca., age 51. Beloved former wife of Edward and loving mother of Gabrielle (Ellie) and the late Andrea. She was active in her church and community, and created a happy and beautiful home for her family. She will always be missed, always loved, always remembered.

  So Mother wasn’t the only one who remembered the good years, I thought. I had written my father a churlish note to inform him of Mother’s death and to ask if her ashes could be interred in Andrea’s grave.

  I’d been so wrapped up in my own pain that it never crossed my mind that the news of her death might affect him deeply.

  I decided the lunch with my father that I’d promised Teddy would take place sooner rather than later. I put the clipping in my suitcase. I wanted to pack right away and leave as quickly as possible. Then the phone rang.

  It was Mrs. Hilmer. “Ellie, I don’t know if this is helpful at all, but I remembered where it was that I read a reference to someone named Phil.”

  “Where, Mrs. Hilmer? Where did you see it?”

  “It was in one of the newspapers you gave me.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “I’m positive. I remember because I was reading it when I was at my granddaughter’s house. The baby was asleep, and I was going through those papers for names of people who still lived around here whom you might want to interview. And Ellie, as I told you when we had dinner, reading about the trial brought everything back, and I was crying. Then I read something about Phil, and that was ve
ry sad, too.”

  “But you’re not sure what it said about him?”

  “You see, Ellie, that’s why I think that even if I can find the item, I’ve probably got the wrong person in mind.”

  “Why do you think that?”

  “Because you’re looking for a man named Phil. I read something about a young girl who died whose family called her ‘Phil.’ ”

  I beat Phil to death, and it felt good.

  Dear God, I thought, was he talking about a girl?

  A young girl who was a homicide victim.

  “Mrs. Hilmer, I’m going to read every one of those papers line by line.”

  “That’s what I’m doing, Ellie. I’ll call you if I come across it.”

  “And I’ll call you if I find it.”

  I pushed the “end” button to terminate the call, laid the phone on the night table, and grabbed the duffel bag. I unzipped it, turned it upside down, and dumped the yellowing, crumbling newspapers on the bed.

  I took the first one that came to my hand, sat down in the chair that faced the river, and began to read.

  The hours passed. Every so often I would get up and stretch. At four o’clock I sent for tea. Tea peps you up. Hadn’t that been the advertising slogan of one of the tea companies?

  It does pep you up. And it helped me to keep focused.

  I concentrated intensely, reading line by line the newspapers, reading again in horrifying detail the story of Andrea’s death and Rob Westerfield’s trial.

  “A.R.” Was the locket totally unimportant after all? No. Absolutely not. If it was unimportant, Rob would never have taken the chance of going back for it.

  Was “A.R.,” the girl who owned the pretty gold locket, yet another victim of one of his murderous rages?

  At six o’clock I took another break and turned on the news. Mrs. Dorothy Westerfield had expired at 3:30. Neither her son nor her grandson had been at her bedside.

  I went back to reading the papers. At seven o’clock I found it. It was in the memorial section of the obituary page the day of Andrea’s funeral. It read:

  Rayburn, Amy P.

  Remembering you today and every day. Happy 18th birthday in heaven, our darling Phil.

  Mom and Dad

  “A.R.” Did the initials on the locket stand for Amy Rayburn? Her middle initial had been P. Could it have been Phyllis or Philomena, shortened to Phil?

  Paulie had found the locket in early May. Andrea was dead twenty-three years. If Amy Rayburn had owned the locket, had she died twenty-three and a half years ago?

  I called Marcus Longo, but there was no answer at his home. I was frantic to have him check Amy Rayburn’s name against homicide reports from that year.

  I knew there was a complete Westchester phone book in the drawer of the night table. I pulled it out, opened it, and turned to the “R” section.

  There were only two Rayburns listed. One lived in Larchmont, the other in Rye Brook.

  I dialed the one in Larchmont. The modulated voice of an older man answered. There was no way to be indirect. “My name is Ellie Cavanaugh,” I said. “It is necessary for me to speak to the family of Amy Rayburn, the young woman who died twenty-three years ago.”

  “For what reason?” The voice had suddenly become frosty, and I knew that I had made contact with someone who was at least a relative of the dead girl.

  “Please answer one question of mine,” I said, “and then I will answer all of yours. Was Amy the victim of a homicide?”

  “If you do not know that already, you have no business calling our family.”

  The phone was slammed down.

  I called back, and this time the answering machine picked up. “My name is Ellie Cavanaugh,” I said. “Nearly twenty-three years ago my fifteen-year-old sister was bludgeoned to death. I believe I have proof that the man who killed her is also responsible for Phil’s death. Please call me back.”

  I began to leave my cell phone number, but the phone was picked up on the other end. “I’m Amy Rayburn’s uncle,” he said. “The man who murdered her served eighteen years in prison. What do you think you’re talking about?”

  44

  THE MAN I HAD CALLED, David Rayburn, was the uncle of seventeen-year-old Amy Phyllis Rayburn, who was murdered six months before Andrea. I told him about Andrea, about Rob Westerfield’s confession to a fellow inmate in prison, about Paulie finding the locket in Rob’s car, and about its being taken from Andrea’s body.

  He listened, asked questions, then said, “My brother was Phil’s father. That was Amy’s nickname in the family and among her close friends. Let me call him now and give him your number. He’ll want to talk to you.”

  Then he added, “Phil was about to graduate from high school. She’d been accepted at Brown. Her boyfriend, Dan Mayotte, always swore he was innocent. Instead of going to Yale, he spent eighteen years in prison.”

  Fifteen minutes later my phone rang. It was Michael Rayburn, Phil’s father. “My brother told me about your call,” he said. “I won’t try to describe my emotions or those of my wife at this moment. Dan Mayotte had been in and out of our home since he was in kindergarten; we trusted him like a son. We have had to make our peace with the death of our only child, but to think that Dan may have been wrongly convicted of her death is almost more than we can bear. I’m a lawyer, Ms. Cavanaugh. What kind of proof do you have? My brother talked about a locket.”

  “Mr. Rayburn, did your daughter have a heart-shaped gold locket with blue stones or gems on the front and her initials on the back?”

  “Let me put my wife on.”

  From the moment she spoke I admired the composure of Phil’s mother. “Ellie, I remember when your sister died. It was only six months after we lost Phil.”

  I described the locket to her.

  “That has to be Phil’s locket. It was one of those inexpensive trinkets you pick up at a shopping mall. She loved that kind of jewelry and had several chains with any number of pendants she’d slip on them. She would wear two or three at the same time. I don’t know if she was wearing the locket the night she was murdered. I never missed it.”

  “Do you think you might have a picture of Phil wearing it?”

  “She was our only child, so we were always taking pictures of her,” Mrs. Rayburn said, and now I could hear tears in her voice. “She was fond of the locket. That’s why she had it engraved. I’m sure I can find a picture of her wearing it.”

  Her husband took the phone from her. “Ellie, from what you told my brother, I understand that the convict who says he heard Westerfield confess to my daughter’s murder is missing.”

  “Yes, he is.”

  “I have never in my heart believed that Dan could attack Phil so violently. He wasn’t a violent person, and I know he loved her. But as I understand it, there is no hard-and-fast proof to actually tie Westerfield to Phil’s death.”

  “No, there isn’t, at least not yet. Maybe it’s too soon to go to the district attorney with what I know, but if you tell me the circumstances of your daughter’s murder and why Dan Mayotte was charged and convicted, I can put it out there on the Website and see if it brings in more information. Can you do that?”

  “Ellie, we’ve been living that nightmare for twenty-three years. I can tell you everything about it.”

  “Believe me, I understand. The nightmare that my family endured broke up my parents’ marriage, eventually killed my mother, and has tortured me for more than twenty years. So, yes, I understand that you’re always living it.”

  “I’m sure you do. Dan and Phil had quarreled and hadn’t seen each other in a week. He did tend to be jealous, and Phil had told us that the week before, when they were buying sodas and candy in the lobby before a movie, some guy started talking to her, and

  Dan got angry. She never described the guy or mentioned his name.

  “She and Dan didn’t speak for a week after that. Then one day she went to the local pizza parlor with some of her girlfriends. Dan came in with
some of his friends and went over to Phil. They talked and I guess began to make up. Those kids were crazy about each other.

  “Then Dan spotted the guy who’d been flirting with Phil in the movies. He was standing at the counter.”

  “Did Dan describe him?”

  “Yes. Good-looking, about twenty years old, dark blond hair. Dan said that at the refreshment stand of the movie house, he’d overheard him tell Phil that his name was Jim.”

  Jim! I thought. That had to be one of the times Rob Westerfield was wearing his dark blond wig and was calling himself Jim.

  “Seeing the guy there at the pizza parlor made Dan jealous all over again. He said that he accused Phil of planning to meet Jim there. She denied it and said she hadn’t even noticed he was in the place. After that, she got up and stalked out. Everyone could see that she and Dan were angry with each other.

  “Phil was wearing a new jacket that night. When she was found there were traces of dog hairs on it that came from Dan’s Irish terrier. Of course she’d been in his car many times, but because that jacket was brand-new, the hairs were proof that she’d been in his car after she left the pizza parlor.”

  “Did Dan deny that Phil got in his car?”

  “Never. He said he persuaded her to get in and talk things over. But when he told her it was too much of a coincidence for him to believe that Jim just happened to be in the pizza parlor, she got sore at him again and got out of the car. She told him that she was going back to her friends and for him to get lost. According to him, she slammed the car door and started to walk from the parking lot, heading back to the restaurant. Dan admitted he was furious and said that he gunned the engine and took off.

  “Phil never made it to the restaurant. When it started to get late and she hadn’t come home, we called the friends she’d gone out with.”

  Mother and Daddy called Andrea’s friends. . . .

  “They told us she was with Dan. At first we were relieved, of course. We thought the world of him and were glad they’d made up. But hours passed, and when he finally did get home, Dan claimed that he’d left Phil in the parking lot and she was going back to the restaurant. The next day her body was found.”