Richard Patterson - Fall from Grace

“And you were helping him make a graceful exit.”

“Actually,” Carla rejoined with a trace of anger, “I felt cheated. But I also thought I’d become strong enough to face whatever came once he was gone. Thanks in part to him.” She paused, then spoke with calm and directness. “You may think he’d lost it, but that’s not true. To the end he was a source of strength, tenderness, and advice. And painfully lucid. Ben admitted that he’d lived a careless life, not caring about the broken china he’d left behind-”

“Broken people,” Adam corrected sharply.

“He knew that. However it happened, he had deep regrets about losing you.”

“A little late. As for his so-called lucidity, you never saw any symptoms of the disease?”

This was a critical point, Adam knew-Clarice, Teddy, and the neurologist could offer a persuasive catalog. “Some,” Carla answered. “Ben would stumble, or slur his speech, or grope for the word he wanted. He said that he was butchering his novel, that the language wouldn’t come to him-”

“Did he tell you it was about hatred between a father and son?”

Carla lowered her eyes. “I’m not surprised,” she said at last. “It would have been kinder if his mind was going. Instead, Ben saw himself with merciless clarity-his present and his past.” She smoothed her dress, an absent, nervous gesture. “I hadn’t planned on telling you this. But that last afternoon he asked if he could live with me. Even though he was dying, I knew it was a lot for Ben to leave his home and marriage. But I said that he could come to me. Instead, I never saw him again.”

“Never?”

“Meaning never. This may sound like a funny scruple. But I never set foot on your parents’ property, because I knew it had been your mother’s home since birth.” Carla’s tone hardened. “You’d like me to have pushed him, I know. That would cure your mother’s financial problems, and end the police investigation of your family. But why would I kill Ben? And why would he ask to live with me, then leap to his death hours later?” She looked Adam in the face. “Someone took a dying man, unable to defend himself, and threw him off the cliff. Maybe someone in your family. No matter what else you feel, I hope that makes you as sick as it makes me.”

With startling suddenness, Adam saw another building block of Sean Mallory’s case against Teddy: Carla’s account, if believable, made suicide seem far less likely. And it undermined Clarice’s claim to have seen a woman standing on the promontory with Ben on an earlier evening-or, at least, the inference that it was Carla Pacelli. “Let me get this straight,” he rejoined. “My father told you he was dying, but failed to mention that he was leaving you ten million dollars.”

Carla nodded. “Ben said that he’d take care of me. But he didn’t say what that involved, and I didn’t feel like interrogating a dying man.”

Adam leaned forward. “Then how do you explain his bequest?”

“I don’t try,” Carla snapped. “At least not to you. I’ve told you I’m uneasy with Ben’s will, and that the rest is for the lawyers to sort out. But you know better than most that their marriage was a sham.”

Abruptly, Adam stood. “Not to my mother,” he said with suppressed fury. “All my life I heard about my father. Right up until I left, she was worried about him and other women. And she was right to worry.”

Impassive, Carla gazed up at him. “You were there. I wasn’t. I apologize for insulting her.” She stood to face him, placing a light hand on his arm. “I don’t know how or when the court will resolve her petition. But if she fails, she can stay in the house for as long as she needs. I don’t cherish the idea of being her landlord, or serving up eviction notices.”

“But that’s where my father put you.”

“Not because I asked him to, or because he was insane.” She paused, then finished in the same even tone. “If you’d still been speaking to him, you’d understand that the last few months were the sanest of his life. Cancer allowed Ben to see himself whole, and hope that some good lived after him. Whether or not you think that I bewitched him, how else do you explain his gift to Jenny Leigh?”

“I have no idea,” Adam retorted. “Do you?”

“I think so. Ben read me one of her short stories in a literary magazine, and told me she had talent. His career had been a lucky one, he said-these days a writer’s life is even harder. Especially for a young woman from the Vineyard who’d had even fewer breaks than him.” Carla’s voice softened. “I thought he might do something to help her. Maybe he imagined that a piece of him would live through her. But if that impulse was in any way selfish, Jenny was the beneficiary.”

A crosscurrent of emotions silenced Adam. One clear, cool thought emerged-this account of his father’s generosity, the act of a sane and compassionate man, strengthened Carla’s case for upholding the will. And the intensity of her gaze, the light touch of her fingers on his arm, suggested how deeply she wanted him to believe this.

“I know what you’re thinking,” she told him. “But I’ve only lied to you once, for reasons of my own, and not about Jenny or the will. Even by the standards of a ‘fearless moral inventory’ I can live with that.” She removed her hand, drawing back a step, still looking into his eyes. “Good night, Adam. Thank you for dinner.”

For a moment, he was frozen there. Before he could respond, Carla turned and left.

Leaving Atria, Adam drove down Water Street and parked in the shadow of the Edgartown lighthouse. The image of Carla Pacelli lingered in his mind.

I’ve only lied to you once, for reasons of my own, and not about Jenny or the will.

Refocusing his thoughts, he watched the porch of the Harbor View Hotel. Forty minutes passed, time dragging in the darkness. Then the woman came through the door, glancing at her watch, and walked swiftly toward the parking lot. As Adam had instructed her, she was alone.

Starting his car, he turned into a side street and waited. In minutes, her car passed along the only route toward Chilmark. Adam turned in the same direction as though by coincidence. For twenty minutes, he trailed her until she reached the cemetery where his father lay, satisfying himself that she would not pick up anyone else. Then he slowed, watching her taillights vanish around a curve, and pulled onto the dirt road toward his home.

It was nearly midnight; no lights came from the house or guesthouse. Parking on the gravel driveway, Adam hurried in the darkness toward the promontory, recalling the shadowy presence that had followed him on the evening he had met with Nathan Wright. On the cliffside, the night was dark and cool and quiet, the only sound the susurrus of waves on the rocky beach below. For a second, he imagined himself as Benjamin Blaine.

Someone took a dying man, unable to defend himself, and threw him off the cliff. Maybe someone in your family. No matter what else you feel, I hope that makes you as sick as it makes me.

Slowly, Adam climbed down the stairs toward the place his father had landed. The distance his father had fallen in the darkness made his skin feel clammy. He imagined the last seconds of Ben’s life, as he hurtled through the night toward his doom.

You might ask Teddy, Bobby Towle had told him, the last time he was at the promontory.

Reaching the bottom, Adam turned from the site of his father’s death, walking toward the water. Here the tide was a continual low rumble, punctuated by the deep echoing surge of six-foot waves striking land. Thick clouds blocked the moon. His surroundings were monochrome-starless sky, dark water, darkened beach. Briefly, Adam took out the night vision goggles he used in Afghanistan.