Mary Clark: Moonlight Becomes You

How can I thank thee?… Let me count the ways.

No words are sufficient to express my gratitude to my long-time editor, Michael Korda, and his associate, senior editor Chuck Adams. A story, like a child, thrives best when it is encouraged, helped, and guided in a wise and caring atmosphere. Again and always… sine qua non… I love you guys.

Gypsy da Silva, who has been copy supervisor for many of my manuscripts, remains a candidate for sainthood with her eagle eye and cheerful patience. Bless you, Gypsy.

Kudos to my pal, author Judith Kelman, who has repeatedly gone on the Internet, the mystery of which I have not fathomed, to procure information I needed immediately.

A thousand thanks to Catherine L. Forment, Vice President of Merrill Lynch, for willingly and knowledgeably answering my many questions about stock investment and confirmation procedures.

A grateful tip of the hat to R. Patrick Thompson, President of the New York Mercantile Exchange, who interrupted a meeting to answer my inquiries about temporary restraining orders.

When I decided that it would be interesting if funeral customs became part of this story, I read fascinating books on the subject. In particular, they were Consolatory Rhetoric by Donovan J. Octs, Down to Earth by Marian Barnes, and Celebrations of Death by Metcalf Huntington.

The Newport Police Department has responded to all my phone calls with great courtesy. I’m grateful to everyone who has been so kind and hope that the police procedure contained in these pages passes inspection.

And finally, loving thanks to my daughter Carol Higgins Clark for her infallible ability to pick up my unconscious idiosyncrasies. Do you know how often you used the word decent?.. .Nothirty-two-year-old would say it like that… You used that samename for a different character ten books ago. ..

And now I can happily quote the words written on a monastery wall in the Middle Ages: “The book is finished. Let the writer play.”

Maggie tried to open her eyes, but the effort was too great. Her headhurt so much. Where was she? What had happened? She raised herhand, but it was stopped inches above her body, unable to move anyfarther.

Instinctively she pushed at the overhead barrier, but it did notmove. What was it? It felt soft, like satin, and it was cold.

She slid her fingers to the side and down; the surface changed. Now it felt ruffled. Aquilt? Was she in somekind of bed ?

She pushed out her other hand to the side and recoiled as thatpalm immediately encountered the same chill ruffles. They were onboth sides of this narrow enclosure.

What was tugging at her ring when she moved her left hand? Sheran her thumb over her ring finger, felt it touch string or cord. Butwhy?

Then memory came rushing bac k .

Her eyes opened and stared in terror into absolute darkness.

Frantically her mind raced as she tried to piece together what hadhappened. She had heard him in time to whirl around just as something crashed down on her head.

She remembered him bending over her, whispering, “Maggie,thinkof the bell ringers.” After that, she remembered nothing .

Still disoriented and terrified, she struggled to understand. Thensuddenly it came flooding bac k. The bell ringers! Victorians had beenso afraid of being buried alive that it became a tradition to tie astring to their fingers before interment. A string threaded through ahole in the casket, stretching to the surface of the burial plot. A stringwith a bell attached to it.

For seven days a guard would patrol the grave and listen for thesound of the bell ringing, the signal that the interred wasn’t deadafter all. ..

But Maggie knew that no guard was listening for her. She wastruly alone. She tried to scream, but no sound came. Frantically shetugged at the string, straining, listening, hoping to hear above her afaint, pealing sound. But there was only silence. Darkness and silence.

She had to keep calm. She had to focus. How had she gotten here?She couldn’t let panic overwhelm her. But how?… How? …

Then she remembered. The funeral museum. She’d gone backthere alone. Then she’d taken up the search, the search that Nualahad begun. Then he’d come, and. ..

Oh, God! She was buried alive! She pounded her fists on the lidof the casket, but even inside, the thic k satin muffled the sound. Finally she screamed. Screamed until she was hoarse, until she couldn’tscream anymore. And still she was alone.

The bell. She yanked on the string… again… and again. Surelyit was sending out sounds. She couldn’t hear them, but someonewould. They must!

Overhead a mound of fresh, raw earth shimmered in the light ofthe full moon. The only movement came from the bronze bellattached to a pipe emerging from the mound: The bell moved backand forth in an arrythmic dance of death. Round about it, all wassilent. Its clapper had been removed.

I hate cocktail parties, Maggie thought wryly, wondering why she always felt like an alien when she attended one. Actually I’m being too harsh, she thought. The truth is I hate cocktail parties where the only person I know is my supposed date, and he abandons me the minute we come in the door.

She looked around the large room, then sighed. When Liam Moore Payne had invited her to this reunion of the Moore clan, she should have guessed he would be more interested in visiting with his cousins-by-the-dozens than worrying about her. Liam, an occasional but normally thoughtful date when he was in town from Boston, was tonight displaying a boundless faith in her ability to fend for herself. Well, she reasoned, it was a large gathering; surely she could find someone to talk to.

It was what Liam had told her about the Moores that had been the factor that made her decide to accompany him to this affair, she remembered, as she sipped from her glass of white wine and maneuvered her way through the crowded Grill Room of the Four Seasons restaurant on Manhattan ’s East Fifty-second Street. The family’s founding father-or at least the founder of the family’s original wealth-had been the late Squire Desmond Moore, at one time a fixture of Newport society. The occasion of tonight’s party/reunion was to celebrate the great man’s one hundred fifteenth birthday. For convenience’s sake, it had been decided to have the gathering in New York rather than Newport.

Going into amusing detail about many members of the clan, Liam had explained that over one hundred descendants, direct and collateral, as well as some favored ex-in-laws, would be present. He had regaled her with anecdotes about the fifteen-year-old immigrant from Dingle who had considered himself to be not one of the huddled masses yearning to be free but, rather, one of the impoverished masses yearning to be rich. Legend claimed that as his ship passed the Statue of Liberty, Squire had announced to his fellow steerage-class passengers, “In no time a-tall I’ll be wealthy enough to buy the old girl, should the government ever decide to sell her, of course.” Liam had delivered his forebear’s declaration in a wonderfully broad Irish brogue.