Mary Clark - The Shadow of Your Smile

“When you were contacted by us, you did readily acknowledge Michael’s mother’s response when you told her and his father that he was terminally ill?”

“After urging Mr. and Mrs. O’Keefe to seek other opinions from qualified specialists, I begged them not to subject Michael to fake promises of a cure. I said I was sure the doctors in Cincinnati would verify my diagnosis, and after that they should take Michael home and enjoy him for the year that he would live.”

“And how did the parents respond?”

“Michael’s father almost collapsed. His mother looked at me and said, ‘My son is not going to die. I am going to begin a crusade of prayer to Sister Catherine and he will get well.’ ”

Monsignors Fell and Kelly exchanged glances. “Dr. Farrell, we need to take your testimony under oath and then we can let you go,” Monsignor Kelly said. “What you have said is crucially important to this proceeding.”

“I’ll be happy to testify under oath,” Monica said quietly. Isn’t it funny, she reflected. The Hippocratic oath is the only one I’ve ever taken. Words from Hippocrates’ Precepts ran through her mind… “for some patients, though conscious that their condition is perilous, recover their health simply through their contentment with the goodness of the physician.”

I wonder if, after all, Michael O’Keefe recovered not because of the goodness of the physician, meaning me, but because of the intervention of a deceased Franciscan nun, Sister Catherine, who spent her life caring for disabled children? Michael’s mother had absolute confidence that Sister Catherine would not suffer her to lose her only child.

It was a thought that stayed with Monica as she repeated her testimony under sacred oath.

Gregory Gannon’s duplex apartment was in one of the Museum Mile buildings, so called because of their proximity on Fifth Avenue to the Metropolitan Museum of Art as well as the Guggenheim and others. It had terraces that allowed him to look over Manhattan in all four directions, with a dazzling view of the most famous island in the world.

Before his second marriage eight years ago, Greg had lived in the corner building next door, in a comfortable twelve-room cooperative apartment that was still occupied by his first wife, Caroline. His two sons had grown up there. Aidan was now a lawyer working as a public defender in the Manhattan Legal Aid Society office. The other, William, was a teacher, who after receiving his master’s degree in sociology had volunteered to serve at an inner-city school. After the divorce neither one of them had chosen to have any further dealings with Greg. “You announced in the media that you were divorcing Mom to marry Pamela when Mom didn’t even have a clue you were running around,” Aidan had told him. “Well, good for you. You’ve got Pamela. You were also quoted as saying ‘for the first time in my life I know what real happiness is.’ So forget about us. You don’t need us and we don’t want you.”

The boys were in their late twenties now. Occasionally, if Greg decided to walk to or from the office, he would run into one of the boys who was going to visit his mother. Greg did not like to admit to himself that he always chose to walk past Caroline’s building in the hope of a chance meeting with his sons. But when it did happen neither son responded to his greeting.

Once in a while, at a benefit, he’d see Caroline across the room. He’d heard that she was getting serious about Guy Weatherill, the CEO of an international engineering firm that specialized in building roads and bridges. Weatherill was a widower, and from all Greg had heard, a very solid citizen. He hoped so for Caroline’s sake. She deserved a good guy. And she got plenty from me in the divorce, Greg always reminded himself defensively.

All this was running through Greg’s mind as he sat in the library at home sipping a vodka and looking out through a terrace window to the brooding early evening sky.

How much would this apartment bring? he asked himself. Eight years ago when Pamela and I were married, I paid eighteen million for it. But then Pam tore it apart and I put another eight million into renovating it. I don’t think I’d get twenty-six million in this market. And how can I face Pam and tell her that I’ve got to cover my losses or else?

I’ve been pretty lucky with the tips I’ve been given. I haven’t made any trades that would look suspicious until these last few years when I got too greedy. The lunch today went great. This guy always lived well, but his trust fund had him on a tight leash. Now that his mother is dead he wants to invest his inheritance and have it make real money for him. He’s heard such good things about me, and a lot of his friends are my clients. If he puts me in charge of his portfolio, I may be able to stay liquid until I make a few killings again.

The foundation. Everybody knew that the returns on investments were way down. The patents have expired and money isn’t pouring in anymore. It hasn’t been for years. But we’ve hit the principal too aggressively, he reflected. I’ve helped myself to money from so-called charities that couldn’t stand the light of day. Peter’s theatre grants would at best be questionable, under close scrutiny. At least Clay as a cardiologist and Doug, the king of mental health research, make us look good with the charities they put us in.

I need to take money, lots of money, from the foundation. But it isn’t there to take anymore.

“Greg?”

As always the seductive voice that had thrilled him the first time he’d met her did its usual magic on Greg Gannon. “In here,” he called.

“You hide in that big leather chair,” his wife said, her tone teasing. “You’re not trying to hide from me, are you?”

Greg Gannon felt arms slide around the back of his chair and wrap themselves around his neck. The exquisite, breathtakingly expensive perfume that Pamela always wore wafted softly through his nostrils. Without seeing her, he could visualize her startling beauty. Not infrequently people mistook her for Catherine Zeta-Jones.

With a tremendous surge of willpower, he pushed aside the demons that were warning him he could not solve his financial problems and that like so many others, he would end up facing a long prison term. He reached up and closed his hands over Pamela’s arms. “Hide from you? Never. Pam, you do love me, don’t you?”

“Silly, silly question.”

“No matter what, you’d never leave me, would you?”

Pamela Gannon laughed, a low, amused laugh. “Why would I ever leave the most generous man in the whole wide world?”

At six o’clock on Wednesday evening, Kristina Johnson phoned her mother.

“Mom, I don’t know what to do. Ms. Carter didn’t come home last night and she doesn’t answer her cell phone. I’m still here alone with the baby.”

“For heaven’s sake, that’s crazy. Today is your day off. Who does that woman think she is?”

“She stayed out one night last week, but she was home in the morning. She’s never been out of contact this long. And I’m worried about Sally. She’s wheezing a little.” Kristina looked down at Sally, who sat quietly on the carpet with a doll in her lap.

“Aren’t you keeping her away from that dog?”

“I try to but Sally loves the dog and he loves her. But Labs shed, and the doctor warned her mother that Sally is allergic to animals.”

“Renée Carter shouldn’t have a pet when she knows it will make her child sick. She’s some kind of mother, let me tell you.”