Mary Clark - The Shadow of Your Smile

She glanced at her watch. It was quarter of eight. Plenty of time to still have dinner, if he can get away, she thought.

At nine o’clock, she awoke with a start. The buzzer to her apartment from the front door was being pushed repeatedly. The sharp, urgent jabs were terrifying to hear. Was the building on fire? She jumped up and ran to the intercom. “Who is this? What’s the matter?” she demanded.

“Dr. Farrell, this is Detective Parks. Detective Forrest has sent me to protect you. You must leave your apartment immediately. Sammy Barber, the man who tried to push you under the bus, was spotted in the alleyway behind your house. We know he has a gun and is determined to kill you. Get out of there now.”

Sammy Barber. In a moment of sheer panic, Monica thought of the bus bearing down on her. She ran to the table and grabbed her cell phone. Not bothering to look for the shoes she had kicked off when she lay down on the couch, she ran from the apartment, down the corridor, and flung open the outer door.

A man in plainclothes was waiting there. “Hurry, hurry,” he said urgently. He put his arm around her and began to rush her down the steps to a waiting car. There was a driver at the wheel, the engine was running, and the back door was open.

Suddenly alarmed, Monica struggled to pull away from his iron grip and began to scream for help. He clasped a rough hand over her mouth and with violent force tried to shove her into the car. Dragging her legs and butting her head back against his chest, she frantically tried to break away.

I’m going to die, she thought. I’m going to die.

It was at that moment from somewhere nearby, she heard a command shouted through a bullhorn. “Let go of her now. Get your hands up. You’re surrounded.”

Monica felt herself being released but was unable to keep her balance, and fell backward on the sidewalk. As her would-be assailant and the driver were grabbed by a swarm of undercover officers, the cell phone she was still clutching rang. Too stunned to react except in a robotlike manner, she answered it.

“Monica, are you all right? It’s Ryan. The accidents weren’t that bad. I’m leaving the hospital. Where shall I meet you?”

“Home,” Monica said, her voice breaking as strong arms lifted her to her feet. “Come over now, Ryan. I need you. Come over right now.”

It was Thursday morning, two days after Monica had been assaulted at her apartment. “Looks as though we’ve got the whole rotten bunch of them,” Detective Barry Tucker commented with satisfaction. He and his partner, Dennis Flynn, along with Detectives Carl Forrest and Jim Whelan, were at headquarters, in the office of Chief Jack Stanton. They were rehashing the series of events since Tuesday night.

“When Dr. Hadley broke down and confessed the minute we walked into his office to question him, he told us that he knew we would be coming. He admitted he suffocated that poor old woman. He even handed over the bloody pillowcase before we asked for it,” Flynn said.

“Langdon isn’t talking, but his girlfriend, Pamela, can’t stop talking,” Carl Forrest said, his voice scornful. “She knows she has no way out of this. Greg Gannon got suspicious of her and found out about the apartment she was keeping with Langdon. Renée Carter’s purse and a card with that address written in Scott Alterman’s handwriting were both there. Pamela admits that Carter got into the car with her and Langdon. They promised to pay her the other nine hundred thousand that Carter was demanding, and she fell for it. She went back to the apartment with them. They gave her a drink with knockout drops and then he strangled her. They kept her body there until they could safely dump it.”

Forrest picked up a glass of water, and swallowed. “Pamela Gannon is one cold fish. She admits she gave Hadley and Langdon the orders to get rid of Olivia Morrow and Dr. Farrell. She also told us that Langdon had hired Sammy Barber to kill Monica Farrell. We got a search warrant for Barber’s apartment and found a tape of him and Langdon talking about getting rid of Dr. Farrell. So they’re both cooked. Not to mention Larry Walker, who tried to abduct Farrell outside her apartment. He said that Barber had hired him to kill her since there was too much heat on him. Sammy has taken off, but there’s a warrant out for him. We’ll find him.”

“Why was Scott Alterman ever fool enough to go to that apartment?” Stanton asked.

“Pamela was in the Southampton House when he got there. She told him she was divorcing Greg, that he had been miserable to live with, and she had found proof that his uncle had an heir. Alterman walked into her trap that night. When he went to the apartment, she put just enough knockout drops in his drink to make him look drunk, and then Langdon hustled him down to the river. The poor guy never had a chance,” Forrest answered.

“Langdon planted the money and the shopping bag in Peter’s office to set him up,” he continued. “He went directly to Peter’s private office after he killed Renée Carter. He never realized that Peter was sleeping it off in the next room. It’s a good thing that Langdon didn’t see him there or I don’t think he’d still be alive.

“Now the way it looks, Greg Gannon will spend the next twenty years or so in prison. Everything he owns will be sold to pay back the investors he defrauded. Everything Pamela Gannon has will be taken from her, not that she’ll have any use for any of it. She’s looking at several life sentences.”

“I’ll take it from here, Jack,” Barry Tucker said, briskly. “The DA is going to dismiss the charges against Peter Gannon.” He dropped his notebook in his pocket. “And we’ll all get a few days off.”

“Oh, I forgot. Your wife likes your crooked smile,” Forrest said. “Isn’t that what you told somebody the other day?”

“It seems more like a year ago. The pity is that even if she could manage to prove she’s Alexander Gannon’s granddaughter, Dr. Farrell probably will never see a nickel of the Gannon money. Langdon, Hadley, and Pamela Gannon have been hemorrhaging it into their own pockets. The foundation money that went into some of Peter Gannon’s theatre projects may cause him trouble with the IRS.”

Jack Stanton stood up. “Good job, all of you,” he said. Hopefully at least some of the money that Langdon and Hadley stole from the foundation will be recovered when they seize their assets. That means if Monica Farrell could actually prove she was the granddaughter, other properties like Alexander Gannon’s home in Southampton may be hers. But I gather at this point she can’t prove anything. Look-alike pictures don’t cut the mustard in court.”

“Carl, does anyone know who Dr. Farrell’s grandmother actually was?” Dennis Flynn asked.

“Dr. Hadley told us that she was Olivia Morrow’s older cousin, a young woman who later became a nun and is presently being considered for beatification by the Catholic Church. He thinks that the file with the proof of her relationship with Gannon was destroyed by Morrow before she died.”

Stanton looked from one to the other of his detectives. “Obviously all of this has to be included in the detectives’ reports. Can you imagine the gossip Dr. Farrell will have to deal with when it comes out? As it is, she’s already survived two attempts on her life. If our guys hadn’t been covering her outside her apartment Tuesday night, she’d be in the river just like Scott Alterman.”

Stanton took a long breath. “Okay, guys, now it’s time to do the paperwork and wrap this up.”

On Thursday afternoon, with enormous pride, Tony Garcia washed and polished his newly acquired Cadillac. With loving hands, he vacuumed the interior and wiped the dashboard and door handles with a damp cloth. Finally, he opened the trunk and it was then that he remembered that he had not yet looked to see if the file that Olivia Morrow had asked him to place in it was still there.