Daddy's Gone a Hunting

  Roast beef, mashed potatoes, and asparagus had been his response to his mother’s request for what to prepare for his farewell dinner. The minute he opened the door, the heartwarming scent of the roasting beef told him that as usual she had made exactly what he wanted.

  Martha Sloane came hurrying out from the kitchen, wiping her hands on her apron. Seventy-four years old, her once-slender figure now a solid size fourteen, her white hair with its natural wave framing her even features, she threw her arms around her son and hugged him.

  “You’ve grown another inch,” she accused him.

  “God forbid,” Mark said fervently. “It’s hard enough for me to get in and out of cabs as it is.” He was six feet six. He glanced over her head to the dining room table and saw that it was set with the sterling silver and good china. “Hey, this really is a send-off.”

  “Well, that stuff never does get used enough,” his mother said. “Make yourself a drink. On second thought, make one for me, too.”

  His mother seldom had a cocktail. With a stab of pain, Mark realized that she was determined not to let the upcoming anniversary of Tracey’s disappearance cloud the last dinner they would have for at least a few months. Martha Sloane had been a court stenographer and understood the long hours he would probably face in his challenging new corporate job.

  It was only over coffee that she talked about Tracey. “We both know what date is coming up,” she said quietly. “Mark, I watch that Cold Case File program on television all the time,” she said quietly. “When you’re in New York, do you think you could get the police to reopen the investigation into Tracey’s disappearance? They have so many more ways to trace what happened to missing people these days, even people who disappeared years ago. But it’s much more likely they’ll do that if someone like you starts asking questions.”

  She hesitated, then went on. “Mark, I know I have had to give up hoping that Tracey lost her memory or was in trouble and had to hide. I believe in my heart that she is dead. But if I could just bring her body back and bury her next to Dad, it would give me so much peace. Let’s face it. I probably have another eight or ten years if I’m lucky. I’d like to know that when my time comes, Tracey will be there with Dad.” She blinked to try to keep her eyes from tearing. “You know how it is. I always was a sucker for ‘Danny Boy.’ I want to be able to kneel and say a prayer over Tracey’s grave.”

  When they rose from the table, she said briskly, “I’d love a game of Scrabble. I just found some nice twisty new words in the dictionary. But your plane is tomorrow afternoon and knowing you, you haven’t started to pack yet.”

  “You know me too well, Mom,” Mark said smiling. “And don’t be talking about having eight or ten years. Willard Scott will be sending you one of those hundredth-birthday cards.” At the door, he hugged her fiercely, then took a chance and asked, “When you lock up are you going to turn off the porch light?”

  She shook her head. “No, I don’t think so. Just in case, Mark, just in case . . .”

  She did not finish the sentence. It hung unsaid in the air. But Mark knew what it was. “Just in case Tracey comes home tonight.”

  4

  On her last visit to the family’s complex, Kate had been shocked to learn that the security cameras were still not working. “Kate, your father turned thumbs down on a new system,” Jack Worth, the plant manager, said. “The problem is that everything around here needs to be upgraded. And the fact is we haven’t got the kind of craftsmen that were working here twenty years ago. The ones that are around are prohibitively expensive because the market is shrinking, and our new employees just aren’t the same. We’re starting to get returns on the furniture regularly. I can’t fathom why your father is so stubborn about selling this place to a developer. The land is worth at least twenty million dollars.”

  Then he’d added, ruefully, “Of course, if he does that, it would put me out of a job. With so many businesses closing, there isn’t too much demand for a plant manager.”

  Jack was fifty-six, with the burly body of the wrestler he had been in his early twenties. His full head of strawberry-blond hair was streaked with gray. Kate knew he was a strict overall manager of the factory, showroom, and the three-story private museum in which every room was furnished with incredibly valuable antiques. He had started working for the company more than thirty years ago as an assistant bookkeeper and took over the management five years ago.

  Kate had changed into a running suit, set the alarm for 3:30 A.M., and settled on the couch. She did not think that she would be able to fall asleep but she did. The only problem was that her sleep was uneasy and filled with dreams, most of which she could not remember, but they left her feeling troubled. The one fragment she could remember was the same one she’d had from time to time: A terrified child in a flowered nightgown was running down a long hall, away from hands that were reaching to grab her.

  I didn’t need that nightmare now, she thought, as she turned off the alarm and sat up. Ten minutes later, bundled in her black down jacket, a scarf over her head, she was in the parking lot of her building and getting into her fuel-efficient Mini Cooper sedan.

  Even at this early hour there was still traffic in Manhattan, but it was moving swiftly. Kate went east through Central Park at Sixty-fifth Street and a few minutes later was driving up the ramp to the Queensboro Bridge. It only took ten minutes more to get to her destination. It was four fifteen, and she knew Gus would be coming any minute. She parked her car behind the Dumpster at the back of the museum and waited.

  The wind was still strong and the car quickly became cold. She was about to turn the engine on again when dim headlights came around the corner and Gus’s pickup truck came to a stop near her.

  In two simultaneous motions they got out of their cars and hurried to the service door of the museum. Kate had a flashlight and the key in her hands. She turned the key in the lock and pushed open the door. With a sigh of relief, she said, “Gus, it’s so great of you to come at this hour.” Once inside she used the beam of her flashlight to see the security keyboard. “Can you believe that even the internal security system is broken?” Gus was wearing a woolen cap pulled down over his ears. A few strands of thinning hair had escaped the cap and were plastered on his forehead. “I knew it had to be important for you to want to meet at this hour,” he said. “What’s up, Kate?”

  “I only pray God I’m wrong, Gus, but I have to show you something in the Fontainebleau suite. I need your expertise.” She reached into her pocket, brought out another flashlight, and handed one to him. “Keep it pointed to the ground.”

  Silently they made their way to the back staircase. As Kate ran her hand over the smooth wood of the banister, she thought of the stories she had heard about her grandfather, who had come to the United States as a penniless but educated immigrant and eventually made a fortune in the stock market. At age fifty, he had sold his investment firm and fulfilled his lifetime dream of creating fine reproductions of antique furniture. He had bought this property in Long Island City and built a complex that consisted of a factory, a showroom, and a private museum to show the antiques he had collected over the years and now would copy.

  At fifty-five he had decided that he wanted an heir and married my grandmother, who was twenty years younger than he. And then my father and his brother were born.

  Dad had taken over the run of the business only a year before the accident, Kate thought. After that Russ Link ran it until he retired five years ago.

  Connelly Fine Antique Reproductions had flourished for sixty years, but as Kate tried repeatedly to point out to her father, the current market for expensive reproductions was shrinking. She had not had the courage to also point out to him that his heavy drinking, neglect of the business, and increasingly erratic hours at the office were other factors in why it was time to sell. Let’s face it, she thought. After my grandfather died, Russ ran everything.

  At the bottom of the stairs Kate began to say, “Gus, it’s the writin
g desk I want to show you—” But then suddenly she stopped, grabbed his arm, and said, “My God, Gus, this place is reeking with gas.” Reaching for his hand, she turned and headed back to the door. They had gone only a few steps when an explosion sent the staircase crashing down upon them.

  Afterward Kate vaguely remembered trying to brush away the blood that was pouring down her forehead and trying to pull Gus’s inert body with her as she crawled to the door. The flames were licking the walls, and the smoke was blinding and choking her. Then the door had blown open and the gusty winds rushed into the hallway. A sheer savage instinct for survival made Kate grab Gus by the wrists and drag him out a few feet into the parking lot. Then she blacked out.

  When the firemen arrived, they found Kate unconscious, bleeding profusely from a wound in her head, her clothing singed.

  Gus was lying a few feet away, motionless. The weight of the fallen staircase left him with crushing injuries. He was dead.

  5

  The highlight of Wednesday’s end-of-the-day senior staff meeting at Hathaway Haute Couturier was the announcement that Hannah Connelly would receive her own designer label for a number of garments to be shown at the summer fashion shows.

  Hannah’s first thought was to share the wonderful news with her sister Kate, but it was almost 7 P.M., and she remembered that Kate was meeting their father and his latest girlfriend for cocktails and dinner. Instead she called her best friend, Jessie Carlson, who had been at Boston College for two years with her before Hannah had switched to the Fashion Institute of Technology. Jessie had gone on to Fordham Law School.

  Jessie whooped with delight at the news. “Hannah, my God, that’s great. You’ll be the next Yves St. Laurent. Meet me at Mindoro’s in a half hour. My treat.”

  At seven thirty, the two were seated across from each other in a booth. The dining room of the popular restaurant was crowded and noisy, a tribute to the excellent cooking and friendly atmosphere.

  Roberto, bald and round and smiling, their favorite waiter, poured the wine. “A celebration, girls?” he asked.

  “You bet it is.” Jessie raised her glass. “To the world’s best designer, Hannah Connelly.” Then she added, “Roberto, one of these days we’ll both be saying, ‘We knew her when.’ ”

  Hannah touched Jessie’s glass with hers, took a sip of wine, and only wished she could stop worrying about what might be going on between her father and Kate. Because of the way the family business was floundering, their relationship was going steadily downhill.

  It was as though Jessie were reading Hannah’s mind. “How’s that handsome father of yours?” she asked as she dipped warm Italian bread into the oil she’d poured onto her plate. “Have you told him about this yet? I know he’ll be thrilled for you.”

  Only Jessie could have put it with such an ironic tone in her voice. Hannah looked affectionately at her former classmate. Jessie’s curly red hair was pulled back in a clip, then cascaded down past her shoulders. Her vivid blue eyes were sparkling and her milk-white skin was devoid of makeup. At five feet eleven inches she towered over Hannah even sitting across from her at the table. A born athlete, Jessie’s body was slim and taut. Totally indifferent to fashion, she depended on Hannah when she needed to have something to wear for a special occasion.

  Hannah shrugged. “Oh you know how excited he will be.” She imitated her father’s voice. “ ‘Hannah, that’s wonderful. Wonderful!’ And then he’ll forget what I told him. And a few days later he’ll ask how the designer business is going. The playboy of the Western world never did have much time for Kate or me, and the older he gets the less he has to do with us.”

  Jessie nodded. “I caught the tension the last time I had dinner with you guys. Kate let off a few zingers to your father.”

  Roberto was heading back to the table, menus in hand. “Do you want to order now or wait a few minutes?” he asked.

  “Linguine with clam sauce and the house salad.” It was Hannah’s favorite pasta.

  “Salmon, with tricolor salad,” was Jessie’s choice.

  “I shouldn’t have bothered to ask,” Roberto said. He had been there for fifteen years and knew every customer’s favorite meal.

  When he was out of earshot, Hannah took another sip of wine and shrugged her shoulders. “Jessie, you’ve been around us since college. You’ve seen enough and heard enough to get the picture. The market has changed. People aren’t buying fine reproductions of antique furniture that much anymore, and the fact is that our productions are no longer all that fine. Up until five years ago or so, we still had a few of the great craftsmen, but now they’re all retired. After my grandfather died thirty years ago, my father took over the reins with the help of Russ Link, who had been my grandfather’s right-hand man. But after the accident, my father took a long time to recover, and when he did, he had lost interest in the business. From what I gather, neither he nor his brother ever really got involved with the day-to-day workings of the business. I really think it’s the old tale of the hardworking immigrant who wants his sons to have every advantage he didn’t have.”

  Hannah realized it was good to talk so openly to the friend she could absolutely trust. “Jess, it’s absolutely coming to a head. I can’t understand it. Dad is getting more and more reckless with money. Can you believe that last summer he leased a yacht for a month? Fifty thousand a week! He’s leasing yachts while the family ship is sinking. I wish to God he’d met someone and gotten married when we were young. Maybe a sensible woman could have kept him in bounds.”

  “I’ll be honest. I’ve wondered about that. He was only thirty when your mother died and that’s nearly twenty-eight years ago. Do you think he was so in love with her that he could never replace her?”

  “I suppose she was the love of his life. I only wish I could remember her. How old was I? Eight months? Kate was only three. And of course it was a terrible tragedy. He lost my mother, his brother Connor, and four close friends. And he was at the helm of the boat. But I must say any guilt didn’t keep him from having a succession of girlfriends or whatever you want to call them. But enough of the family woes. Let’s enjoy the dinner you’re paying for and hope that Kate and Dad and whoever-she-is are being civil to each other.”

  Two hours later, on the way home to her condo on Downing Street in Greenwich Village, Hannah was again reflecting on the past. I was just a baby when we lost our mother, she was thinking as she got out of the cab. She thought of Rosemary “Rosie” Masse, their nanny, who had retired to her native Ireland ten years ago.

  God love Rosie. She raised us, but she always told us that she wished Dad would get married again. “Marry a nice lady who will love your two beautiful little girls and be a mother to them,” was her advice to Dad, Hannah thought with a faint smile, as inside her apartment, she settled into her favorite chair and turned on the television and DVR to watch a few of the shows that she recorded.

  The fatal fishing accident that had killed her mother, her uncle, and four other people had happened because her father’s boat hit a cable between a tanker and a barge in the predawn darkness. They were headed seventy miles out into the Atlantic to where tuna often gathered at daybreak. Her father, Douglas Connelly, was the only survivor. He was found lying unconscious and badly injured in a life raft by a coast guard helicopter crew when the sun came up. He had been hit in the head by debris of the sinking boat.

  He wasn’t totally an absentee father, Hannah mused as she fast-forwarded through the commercials. It was just that he wasn’t there a lot—either traveling for business or just too busy with his social life. Russ Link ran the business and Russ was a perfectionist. The guys who worked there, like Gus Schmidt, weren’t just craftsmen. They were artists. Rosie lived with us on East Eighty-second Street and was always there for summers and holidays when we came home on school vacations. God knows Dad sent us to boarding schools as soon as they’d take us.

  Hannah was not sleepy and did not turn off the television until midnight. Then she undresse
d quickly and slipped between the covers at 12:20 A.M.

  At 5 A.M. the phone rang. It was Jack Worth. “Hannah, there’s been an accident—some kind of explosion at the plant. Gus Schmidt and Kate were there. God knows why. Gus is dead and Kate is in an ambulance on the way to Manhattan Midtown Hospital.”

  He anticipated her next question. “Hannah, I don’t know why the hell she and Gus were in the museum at that hour. I’m on my way to the hospital. Should I call your father or will you?”

  “You call Dad,” Hannah said as she bolted out of bed. “I’m on my way. I’ll see you there.”

  “Oh God,” she prayed. “Don’t let this be Kate’s fault. Don’t let it be Kate’s fault. . . .”

  6

  Even before she started openly flirting with Majestic, Douglas Connelly had become thoroughly bored with Sandra. He knew that her story of being runner-up to Miss Universe was total fiction. He had looked her up on the Internet and learned that she had been runner-up in a local beauty contest in her hometown of Wilbur, North Dakota.

  He had been faintly amused by her fantasizing until at dinner he had seen the scorn in Kate’s face and knew she was contemptuous of him and his lifestyle.

  He also knew that he deserved that contempt.

  A favorite expression his own father used when he had a difficult decision to make ran constantly through his mind. I feel as though I’m between the devil and the deep blue sea, and be damned to them both. No matter how much I drink, I feel that way all the time, Doug thought as he sipped the last of the champagne.

  Between the devil and the deep blue sea. It was a singsong refrain that he could not turn off.