Mary Clark - Nighttime Is My Time

"We'll take care of your bags, sir."

Carter Stewart pressed a five-dollar bill into the doorman's hand. At least he didn't say, "Welcome home," he thought.

Five minutes later, a scotch from the mini-bar in his hand, he was standing at a window in his suite. The Hudson was brooding and restless. Only mid-afternoon in October and there was already a winter feel in the air. But at least, thank God, the reunion was over. I even quite liked seeing a few of those people again, Carter thought, if only to remind me of how far I've come since I left there.

Pierce Ellison felt that they needed to strengthen the character of Gwendolyn in the play. "Get someone who really is a ditsy blonde," he'd been urging. "Not an actress playing a ditsy blonde."

Carter Stewart chuckled aloud as he thought of Laura. "My, my, how she would have fit the bill," he said aloud. "I'll drink to that, even though in one hundred thousand years it would never have happened."

Robby Brent had not missed the fact that many of his former classmates shunned him after his speech at the dinner. A few others had paid him the barbed compliment of saying that he was a marvelous mimic, even if he had been a little hard on their old teachers and the principal. It also got back to him that Jean Sheridan said humor should not be cruel.

All of which was intensely satisfying to Robby Brent. Miss Ella Bender, the math teacher, had apparently been seen crying in the ladies room after the dinner. You seem to forget, Miss Bender, how frequently you reminded me that I didn't have one-tenth the ability for higher mathematics that my brothers and sisters did. I was your whipping boy, Miss Bender. The last and least of the Brents. And now you have the nerve to be offended when I show your prissy ways and unfortunate habit of frequently licking your lips with your tongue. Too bad.

He had hinted to Jack Emerson that he might be in the market to invest in property, and Emerson had buttonholed him after the brunch. Emerson was a blowhard in a lot of ways, Robby thought as he turned into the Glen-Ridge driveway, but he did make sense when they talked about real estate and the advisability of investing in this area.

"Land," Emerson had expounded. "Around here it does nothing but go up in value. Taxes are low when it's undeveloped. Sit on it for twenty years, and you'll be worth a fortune. Get in on it before it goes out of sight, Robby. I have a few listings on some fabulous parcels, all with views of the Hudson, and some of them waterfront. They'll knock your socks off. I'd buy them myself, but I have plenty. Don't want to make my kid too rich when he grows up. Stay over and I'll take you around tomorrow."

"It's the land, Katie Scarlett, it's the land." Robby grinned, remembering the bewildered look on Emerson's face when he quoted that line from Gone With the Wind to him. But then he'd latched onto it when he explained that what Scarlett's father meant was that land was the basis for security and wealth.

"Gotta remember that, Robby. That's great and it's true. Land is real money, real value. Land doesn't go away."

Next time I'll try a quote from Plato on him, Robby thought as he stopped the car at the entrance to the Glen-Ridge. Might as well let the valet do the parking today, he thought. I'm not going anywhere until tomorrow, and then I'll be in Emerson's car.

Jack Emerson should only know how much property I already have, he thought. W. C. Fields used to leave money in banks in towns all over the country, wherever he was performing. I buy undeveloped land all over the country and then have it posted with no trespassing signs.

All my life growing up, I lived in a rented house, he thought. Even back then, those intellectual wizards, my mother and father, couldn't scrape together enough money for a down payment on a real home. Now, besides my home base in Vegas, if I wanted, I could build a house on my property in Santa Barbara or Minneapolis or Atlanta or

Boston or the Hamptons or New Orleans or Palm Beach or Aspen, to say nothing of acres and acres in Washington. Land is my secret, Robby thought smugly as he walked into the lobby of the Glen-Ridge.

And land holds my secrets.

"I was at the cemetery this morning," Alice Sommers told Jean. "I could see the Stonecroft group at the memorial service. Karen's grave isn't terribly far from where Alison Kendall is buried."

"Not as many people attended as I would have expected," Jean said. "Much of the class went directly to the breakfast."

They were sitting in the cozy den of Alice Sommers' townhouse. She had started the fire, and the leaping flames not only warmed the room but elevated their spirits as well. It was clear to Jean that Alice Sommers had been weeping for a long time. Her eyes were swollen and puffy, but there was an expression of peace on her face that had not been there yesterday.

As though she could read her thoughts, Alice said, "You know, as I told you yesterday, the days leading up to the anniversary are the worst. I go over every minute of that last day, wondering if there was something we could have done to keep Karen safe. Of course, twenty years ago we didn't have an alarm system. Now, most of us wouldn't dream of going to bed without setting an alarm in the house."

She reached for the teapot and refilled their cups. "But now I'll be okay again," she said briskly. "In fact, I've decided that retirement may not be such a good thing. One of my friends has a flower shop and needs help. She's asked me to work for her a couple of days a week, and I'm going to do it."

"That's a great idea," Jean said sincerely. "I remember how beautiful your garden always looked."

"Michael used to tease me by saying that if I spent as much time in the kitchen as I did in the garden, I'd be a world-class chef," Alice said. She glanced out the window. "Oh, look, here's Sam. Right on time, as always."

Sam Deegan scraped his feet carefully on the mat before he rang the bell. He had stopped at Karen's grave on his way to meet Jean, then had found himself almost unable to say that he had to give up trying to find her killer. Something kept blocking the apology he had planned to offer her. Finally he had said, "Karen, I'm retiring. I have to. I'll talk your case over with one of the young guys. Maybe somebody smarter than I am can nab the guy who hurt you."

Alice was opening the door before his finger touched the bell. He did not comment on her swollen eyes, but gripped both her hands in his. "Let me just be sure I don't track mud into the house," he said.

He was at the cemetery, Alice thought gratefully. I know he was. "Come on in," she told him. "Don't worry about a speck or two of dirt." There was something so strong and reassuring about Sam, she thought as she took his coat. I was so right when I asked him to try to help Jean.

He had brought a notebook with him, and after greeting Jean and accepting the offer of a cup of tea from Alice, he got down to business. "Jean, I've been doing a lot of thinking. We have to take seriously that whoever is writing you about Lily may be capable of hurting her. He was near enough to her to pick up her hairbrush, so it may be someone in the family who adopted her. He-and understand, it could just as easily be a she- may intend to try to extort money from you, which as you point out would be almost a relief. But that kind of situation could go on for years, too. So it's clear we've got to find this person as fast as possible."

"I went to St. Thomas of Canterbury this morning," Jean said, "but the priest who said Mass was one who only comes in on Sundays. He said I should go to the rectory office tomorrow and see the pastor about looking at the baptismal records. Since then I've been thinking about it. He might be pretty wary about opening them to me. He might think this is just my way of trying to find Lily."