Mary Clark - Nighttime Is My Time

Her parents had talked to her about her birth mother. They had promised Meredith that after she was graduated from West Point, they would try to learn her identity and then arrange a meeting between them. "We have no idea who she is, Meri," her father had told her. "We do know, because the doctor who delivered you and arranged the adoption told us, that your birth mother loved you deeply and that giving you up was probably the most unselfish and difficult decision she would ever have to make in her whole life."

All this ran through Meredith's mind as she tried to concentrate on the linear algebra exam. But she could not block out the awareness that every tick of the clock brought her closer to greater knowledge of the mother she now knew as Jean.

As she handed in her exam and rushed toward Thayer Gate and the military academy museum, she realized that the reference to Palm Beach had solved the question her father had asked her yesterday on the phone. That's where I lost my hairbrush, she remembered suddenly.

A stony-faced Carter Stewart came into the hotel at ten o'clock, while Sam was sitting in the lobby. Sam made a beeline for him, catching him at the desk. "Mr. Stewart, I'd like to have a word with you if I may."

"In a minute, Mr. Deegan." The clerk with the wood-chip-colored hair was behind the desk. "I need to see the manager, and I need to get into Mr. Brent's room again," Stewart snapped at him. "The production company has received yesterday's package. Apparently there is one more script that is vitally needed, and I have been asked to do the proverbial good deed once more. Since the script was not on top of the desk, it will involve going through the desk."

"I'll summon Mr. Lewis immediately, sir," the clerk said nervously.

Stewart turned to Sam. "If they do refuse to let me go rummaging through Robby's desk, I don't care. I will have paid the debt of gratitude that my agent insists I owe him. He has now agreed that it has been paid in full. He doesn't know it yet, but that gives me the moral right to fire him, which I intend to do this afternoon."

Stewart turned back to the clerk. "Is the manager here, or is he out in the field picking flowers?"

What a nasty human being, Sam thought. "Mr. Stewart," he said, his tone icy, "I have a question, and I need to know the answer to it. A few nights ago, I understand you, Mr. Amory, Mr. Brent, Mr. Emerson, Dr. Fleischman, and Mr. Nieman were joking about working together on the evening cleaning crew of an office building managed by Mr. Emerson's father."

"Yes, yes, something about that came up. That was the spring of our senior year. Another tender memory of my glorious time at Stonecroft."

"Mr. Stewart, this is very important. Did you hear anyone mention that Dr. Sheridan had been a patient of a Dr. Connors who had an office in that building?"

"No, I did not. And, besides, why would Jean have been a patient of Dr. Connors? He was an obstetrician." Stewart's eyes widened. "Oh, my. Have we a little secret about to come out, Mr. Deegan? Was Jeannie a patient of Dr. Connors?"

Sam looked at Stewart with loathing. He wanted to kick himself for the way he had framed the question, and he wanted to punch Stewart for his leering response to it. "I asked you if someone had made that statement," he said. "I did not for one instant suggest that it was true."

Justin Lewis, the manager, had come up behind them. "Mr. Stewart, I understand you wish to go into Mr. Brent's room and go through his desk. I am afraid that I really can't allow that. I spoke to our law firm yesterday after I let you take those scripts, and they were quite upset about it."

"There we are," Stewart said. He turned his back on the manager. "My business here is pretty well wrapped up, Mr. Deegan," he said. "My director and I have completed going over his suggested changes for my play, and I have had quite enough of hotel life. I'm going back to Manhattan this afternoon, and I wish you good luck waiting for Laura and Robby to bob to the surface."

Sam and the hotel manager watched him exit the lobby. "That is one nasty guy," Justin Lewis told Sam. "It's obvious that he hates Mr. Brent."

"Why do you say that?" Sam asked quickly.

"Because a note Mr. Brent left on his desk referring to Mr. Stewart as 'Howie' obviously got under his skin. From what Mr. Stewart said, it was Mr. Brent's idea of a joke, but then Mr. Stewart asked me if I knew that saying about 'he who laughs last laughs best.' "

Before Sam could comment, his cell phone rang; the caller was Rich Stevens. "Sam, we have a call in from the Cornwall cops. A car was spotted in the Hudson. It was partially submerged, but caught on rocks, which is why it didn't go all the way down. There's a body in the trunk. It's Robby Brent, and it appears he's been dead for a couple of days. You'd better get over there."

"Right away, Rich." Sam snapped his phone closed. " He who laughs last laughs best ." When Laura and Robby "bob to the surface ." Bobbing, as in water? he wondered. Was Carter Stewart, once known as Howie, not only a celebrated playwright but a psychopathic killer as well?

At ten o'clock Jake was back in the darkroom at the school, developing his latest set of pictures. The ones he had taken of the back of the Mountain Road house really didn't contribute anything to his story, he decided. Even the door with its decorative grill had a Norman Rockwell, down-home feeling. The shot into the kitchen wasn't bad, but who wanted to look at bare countertops?

This morning was basically a waste, Jake decided. I shouldn't have bothered cutting my second class. As the quick shot he had taken of the house from the front began to develop, he could see that it was a little out of focus. He might as well deep-six it. He'd never use it in the article.

He heard his name being called from outside the darkroom. It was Jill Ferris, and she sounded upset. She couldn't be mad at me, he thought-it wasn't her class I cut. "I'll be right out, Ms. Ferris," he called.

As soon as he opened the door he could tell by the look on her face that something had really shaken her up. She didn't bother to say hello to him. "Jake, I took a chance you might be in there," she said. "You interviewed Robby Brent, didn't you?"

"Yes, I did. A good interview if I do say so myself." She's not going to kill it, is she? Jake thought with dismay. Old Downes probably wants to forget that Brent and Laura Wilcox ever set foot in Stonecroft.

"Jake, it just came over the news. Robby Brent's body was found in the trunk of a car submerged near Cornwall Landing."

Robby Brent dead! Jake grabbed his camera. I still have a lot of film left, he thought. "Thanks, Jill," he yelled, as he raced out the door.

The car with Robby Brent's body had gone into the Hudson at Cornwall Landing. The normally tranquil park, with its benches and weeping willows, was now the center of police activity. The area had been hastily taped-off to hold back the curious bystanders who, like the media, were gathering in ever-increasing numbers.

When Sam arrived at ten-thirty, the body of the late Robby Brent had already been placed in a body bag and in the morgue wagon. Cal Grey, the medical examiner, filled Sam in. "He's been dead at least a couple of days. Stab wound in the chest. Went right through his heart. I have to wait till I can take measurements, but I've got to tell you, Sam, that it appears to be the same kind of jagged-edge knife that killed Helen Whelan. From what I can see, whoever murdered Brent was either a lot taller or was standing on something like a staircase where he was above the victim. That knife went in at a distinct angle.

Mark Fleischman is tall, Sam thought. Talking to Fleischman, he could understand why Jean had been drawn to him. He had a plausible explanation for the reason he had inquired about the fax and for his knowledge that Jean had been a patient of Dr. Connors. Was he being honest, or was he a little too glib? Sam wasn't sure.