Daddy''s Gone a Hunting

  The distress in her expression gave way to a look of fierce determination. “She is innocent and can’t defend herself.” Then the elevator stopped at Mark’s floor and reluctantly he got off. The lawyer in him wanted to know more about how strong a case was being built against a gravely wounded young woman. The thought of the pain that her sister, who was now his neighbor, was undergoing reinforced his own personal grief about Tracey.

  He had no way of knowing that the answer to his own sister Tracey’s disappearance would be found in the rubble of the Connelly complex explosion.

  42

  Over the weekend, Jack Worth had called Douglas Connelly every day to inquire about Kate’s condition and had received the same answer: “No change.”

  On Monday evening when Jack made the call, Doug’s new girlfriend, Sandra, had answered. “Kate has a fever,” she explained. “Doug is staying there with Hannah for a while. We’ll have a late dinner. The poor man is so upset and, between you and me and the lamppost, I think Hannah is being rotten to him. I’ve seen it. You’d think she was the only one heartsick about her sister. I told Doug that he should out and out tell her that they should be emotionally supporting each other.”

  “I couldn’t agree more,” Jack Worth said, even as he sarcastically raised his eyes. “Douglas Connelly loves his girls to death.”

  “I mean he told me that he never remarried, because he was afraid that a stepmother might resent them. Now, I ask you, wasn’t that a big sacrifice for a handsome, generous man like Doug to make?”

  Sandra’s voice had become indignant.

  He couldn’t have had a carload of bimbos all these years if he had been married, Worth thought. Just the way I got stuck, he’d have been divorced and would have had to split his assets. Doug was never going to do that. “He made a great sacrifice for his girls,” was his answer to Sandra, his voice dripping with sincerity.

  When he hung up, Jack Worth felt uneasy. It was all very well that Doug had figured out a scenario where Kate had been lured to the complex by Gus Schmidt because Gus intended to let her die in the explosion, but would it hold water? And if Kate came out of the coma with all her senses, would she go along with that story? If she did, everything would be A-OK. But if she didn’t, Doug would be out the millions in insurance for the antiques, to say nothing of the value of the rest of the complex. He’d be left with a piece of land that was worth lots of money but nothing compared to the total value of the furniture, the buildings, the equipment, and whatever else he could throw at the insurance adjustor.

  But Gus Schmidt’s wife had practically admitted that she thought Gus and Kate had planned the explosion. The ironic part of what Lottie had said is that if Kate recovers and can wiggle out of it, Gus will be blamed. And Lottie’s mouthing off about how bitter Gus had been at the Connellys will end up helping them collect the insurance.

  Jack Worth looked around at his colonial-style home, which had been tastefully decorated by his then-wife, Linda, before she had walked out fifteen years ago, when Johnny was three years old. She hadn’t told him she was leaving him. She had just cleared out, taking Johnny with her. She’d left a note on the table. “Dear Jack, I’ve struggled to make this work, but it can’t, and it won’t because you’re always having your dirty little affairs with employees at Connelly’s. I’m filing for divorce. My parents back me up completely. I’ll stay with them for a while until I get my own place. My mother is happy to mind Johnny while I’m at work and when he’s not in preschool. Good-bye, Linda.”

  Linda was a nurse in the neonatal unit at Columbia Presbyterian Hospital. She was still there, but now she was married to a gynecologist, Theodore Stedman. When he was twelve, Johnny, John William Worth Jr., had asked that his name be changed to John William Stedman so that he wouldn’t feel different from his two little brothers.

  “And besides, Dad,” he had explained to Jack, “I don’t see very much of you.”

  “Well, you know how it is, Johnny. I’m a pretty busy guy.”

  Johnny was eighteen now and was the quarterback on his high school football team. Jack knew that his son was playing a big game tonight and he momentarily debated about attending it. Then he shrugged. It was getting colder and he didn’t feel much like sitting on freezing metal bleachers, rah-rahing for the home team. Especially since his son couldn’t care less if he was there.

  He debated about taking a ride up to his condo in Connecticut near the Mohegan Sun Casino, where he could try his luck at the blackjack table. But he didn’t feel lucky tonight and instead decided to go out to the local pub, where he could sit at the bar, get a good steak, have a couple of drinks, and watch the ball game on the oversized television. And who knows? He might get lucky with one of the many women who hung out at the pub.

  Jack smiled and thought that this would be a satisfactory answer to a very unsettling day. He was reaching into the hall closet for his jacket when the phone rang. It was Fire Marshal Frank Ramsey. “I’m very glad I caught you, Mr. Worth,” he said. “We can be over at your place in twenty minutes. It’s very important.”

  “Of course, come right over,” Worth said. Slowly he hung up the phone and sank into a chair. He stared straight ahead as he tried to guess what was so urgent that those marshals needed to see him right away. Keep cool, he told himself. You have nothing to worry about. Absolutely nothing.

  43

  Fire Marshals Frank Ramsey and Nathan Klein had rushed to the crime lab when they received the call telling them a spiral notebook that belonged to Jamie Gordon, the murdered college student, had been found in the damaged van. It had been tested for fingerprints and hairs and blood by the time they arrived. The fingerprints matched the ones on file for Jamie. Her prints had been obtained after she disappeared by the original detectives who tested personal articles from her home and off-campus apartment.

  Soberly, with gloved hands, Frank and Nathan, both fathers, had looked through the notebook. There were four accounts of homeless men and women whom she had interviewed at length. There was also a list of people whom she had tried to interview. Sometimes she didn’t know their names and only gave descriptions, noting that they wouldn’t talk to her at all. Other times her observations were more detailed:

  “Woman in her seventies, long gray hair, missing most of her teeth . . . clearly delusional . . . said she was a nomad in the Middle Ages and is destined to live that life again now. I believe she was well educated. She goes to shelters at night but doesn’t stay during the day unless the weather is really terrible. She calls herself Naomi. From what I could learn about her, she used to squat in one of the abandoned apartment buildings on the Lower East Side but they’ve been pretty much cleared out now. Heavy drugs were her problem. Now she begs marijuana from other street people. They all like her and most are willing to share. Then she blesses them so that in their next incarnation, they’ll come back as a king or a queen or a sheikh.”

  The three additional case accounts were described in their own substantial detail.

  “The notebook is in pretty good condition,” Frank Ramsey had observed. “So maybe she carried it with her into the van.”

  “There’s a splotch of dried mud on it,” Klein pointed out. “Here’s another scenario. She felt threatened by someone she talked to, dropped it when she was running away, and the guy who lived in the van picked it up.”

  The marshals had reached out to the detective in charge of the Gordon murder, Detective John Cruse, to inform him of their discovery. Cruse had decided immediately that the finding of the notebook would not yet be revealed to either Jamie Gordon’s family or the media. “It will have to come out at some point,” he had said. But they all had agreed it would be potentially harmful to both investigations to start a media circus now. They knew that any clue to Jamie Gordon’s disappearance would remain on the front pages of the tabloids for weeks.

  “A description of all the homeless people Jamie spoke to or described in her notebook will be sent out to every precinct in New
York,” Cruse said. “The local cops get to know the street people in their area.”

  Even though it was already early evening, Ramsey and Klein decided to go directly from the crime lab to interview Jack Worth at his home in Forest Hills, Queens. Ramsey’s first question had been, “Mr. Worth, in light of the fact that it is now evident that that wrecked van had become the shelter of a vagrant, how is it possible that its presence was never noticed?”

  Jack Worth’s answer had been both surly and defensive. “Before I answer that, let me give you some background. I’ve been working there since I was twenty-five. That’s over thirty years ago. I worked my way up until I was second in command to Russ Link. He was the manager ever since Mr. Doug Connelly’s father died, a couple of years before the bad accident. After that, Doug Connelly barely bothered with the business, except to show up a few times a week. When a major client was coming in, he would do the grand tour of the museum with them, then take them to dinner and the theater. Or he’d travel to their company headquarters in Rome, or London, or who knows where else. It was right after Russ retired and I took over five years ago that the books were showing the deep slide in sales. At that point Doug Connelly became more involved.”

  He shrugged his shoulders. “That was when one of our new drivers had the accident with the van. He had made a delivery in Pennsylvania and then apparently he had stopped at a bar on the way back. He was just a few miles from here, in Jersey, when he dozed off and hit a tree on someone’s lawn. The van was badly damaged, but he was able to drive it back to the lot. Lucky for us, nobody saw the accident, and lucky for him, he didn’t end up with a DWI.

  “Mr. Connelly didn’t want to have it on record that the van had been involved in an accident with a drunken employee. He fired the guy and told me to cancel the insurance coverage. Then he just let the van sit in the back.”

  “Mr. Connelly seems to be very insurance conscious,” Marshal Klein had observed. “Did it occur to him that the homeowner where the tree had been hit should have been notified?” It was basically a rhetorical question. Then Klein added, “Didn’t any of the other employees comment on the condition of the van?”

  “I think that it was pretty well known among the guys that everyone should keep their mouths shut.”

  “What is the name of the employee who had the accident?”

  “Gary Hughes. He went on to work for a limo service, from what I heard. Good luck to the people who are in the car when he gets behind the wheel.” Jack Worth got up and retrieved an address book from the desk in the room and then jotted down the driver’s full name and home address. “If he still lives there and if he still works for that company,” he commented as he handed Klein the sheet of paper.

  “We’ll find him,” Ramsey said quietly.

  Clearly nervous, Jack Worth moistened his lips before he answered. “Like I told you, Mr. Connelly knew the business was on the way down. He has been waiting for a bigger offer than the one that’s been on the table. He’s right about that. The property is worth more than the offer he has. He leases yachts, but he wasn’t wasting five cents in these last five years on anything to fix up the complex.”

  Worth stood up. “Look, it’s been a long day. There’s nothing more I can tell you. Let’s call it quits.”

  “All right,” Klein replied. “We’ll stop now, but we’ll be calling you again.”

  “I’m sure you will,” Jack Worth replied caustically.

  44

  Kate’s fever was 101.5. Her throat dry with fear, Hannah sat by her bedside. She could only whisper, “Please, dear God, please.” She knew that she should call Doug but she didn’t want to. I don’t want him blubbering in here, she thought. Anyway, Dr. Patel may have phoned him on his own.

  At least that can be my excuse why I didn’t call, she thought.

  Kate, Katey, please don’t die. Please don’t die.

  At 7:30 P.M. Jessie came in with an overnight bag. Hannah met her in the ICU waiting room. “I brought jeans and a sweater and sneakers, besides your toothbrush and toothpaste,” she said. “I figured you’d be a lot more comfortable in these than sitting around dressed up and in heels.”

  Hannah whispered, “Thanks.”

  “How is she?” Jessie knew she had to ask the question even though she could see the answer in Hannah’s eyes.

  “If they can break the fever in the next few hours, it should be okay. If it keeps going up, it will probably mean that there’s a secondary infection starting and . . .” Hannah did not finish the sentence. But then she bit her lip and said, “Jess, I’ll get changed and go back inside to Kate. I don’t want you sitting here if this turns out to be an all-nighter. I’ll only worry about you and, I promise you, if the fever breaks I’ll go home.” She tried to smile. “If that happens, Dr. Patel will throw me out.”

  Jessie realized that Hannah needed her own space. “Just remember, I’m a phone call away.”

  “I know.”

  “What about Doug? Is he coming over?”

  “Dr. Patel told me that he had talked to him. He’s on his way.” Then Hannah burst out, “I just wish that he’d stay away. I swear the only thing that really concerns him is putting the blame for the fire on Gus and making sure that Kate comes up with a story to match that scenario. If there’s one thing that’s foremost on Dad’s mind, it’s getting his hands on that insurance money. If he ever collects it all, forget about leasing a yacht. He’ll buy one!”

  The door to the waiting room was opening. It was Dr. Patel. “Kate is beginning to respond to the medication,” he said. “Her fever dropped one full degree. I’m not promising anything but it’s certainly a good sign.” With an encouraging smile, he added, “I’ll be around, Hannah. Get yourself a cup of coffee and something to eat.” With a quick nod of his head, he stepped back into the corridor.

  “You have just heard good news and splendid advice,” Jessie said briskly. “Why don’t you go into the ladies’ room and get changed? I’ll get some sandwiches and coffee from the cafeteria and bring them up. We’ll have them here, and then I’ll get out of your way.” Before she could hear a protest from Hannah, she said, “It’s nearly eight o’clock. Dinnertime among the elite.”

  “Thanks. That would be great,” Hannah agreed, even while she thought, Kate’s temperature is dropping but I’m grasping at straws if I try to think she’s out of the woods. I know that any fever, even if it has come down, is still dangerous.

  Jessie went to the elevator while Hannah went to the ladies’ room, which was in the other direction. Carrying her bag, Hannah went in and saw that no one was there. With a quick motion, she kicked off her heels and peeled off her jacket, blouse, and dress slacks. I’m taking a chance on someone walking in by doing a quick strip here, she thought, but trying to change in one of those narrow stalls would take twice as long.

  She was back in the waiting room just in time to see her father disappear into the ICU. I’ll leave him alone with Kate, she thought. Knowing him, fifteen minutes is about as long as he’ll stay. Within five minutes Jessie was back with the coffee and sandwiches. As they unwrapped them, Hannah jerked her head in the direction of the ICU. “Doug is here. He didn’t see me. Let’s see how long he lasts.”

  Fifteen minutes later, they were finished eating. They were putting the wrappings and the empty Styrofoam cups in the wastebasket as Doug came into the room.

  Jessie’s first thought was one that she often had when she came face-to-face with Douglas Connelly. He was a stunningly handsome man with sculpted features. His charcoal-brown hair was flecked with gray on the sides and at the temples. His midnight-blue eyes were wide apart and framed by long lashes. His smile revealed perfect teeth, and if they were capped, it was not obvious. He was impeccably dressed in a striped shirt, tie, and cardigan. Hannah had told her that she understood that his new designer of choice was Armani.

  With all his good looks and impeccable style, Doug still gave the impression of being the kind of man who was also an athlete. Jes
sie knew that was an accurate take. She had been with him and the girls on a number of occasions when he was accepting a country club championship trophy for golf or tennis. And she knew that when he was younger he had also played polo.

  “Hannah, I just spoke to Dr. Patel inside there,” he said. “He’s very encouraged that Kate’s fever is dropping.”

  “Yes, I know,” Hannah replied.

  “I’d stay longer, but I think those fire marshals want to talk to me tonight. I can’t imagine what the rush is, why it won’t hold till morning. Have you heard from them?”

  “No, I haven’t. Not since Thursday night.”

  “I imagine they’re with Jack Worth now.”

  Doug looks worried, Jessie thought, and I don’t think it’s all about Kate’s condition.

  Doug kissed Hannah tentatively on the cheek and said, “I am sure our prayers are being answered. The fever seems to be under control.”

  “Yes. And I’ve been away from Kate too long,” Hannah said. “Good-bye, Dad. Jess, a thousand thanks.”

  She was gone, on her way back to the ICU. Jessie was glad to have the chance to have a few minutes alone with Doug as they made their way down the elevator and out to the hospital entrance where Doug’s car was waiting. “I’d offer to drive you home,” he said, “but those marshals are coming and the crosstown traffic is always heavy.”

  “That’s fine,” Jessie said. “I see a cab coming.” She raised her hand to hail it. “But Doug,” she added quickly, “don’t forget I’m representing Kate. Anything I can find out to help her, if she’s charged with being involved in the explosion, is very important. I’d really like to know what the marshals are up to.”