Mary Clark - Where Are You Now?

I admit I felt a twinge of jealousy and then felt guilty about it. Elliott was a rock. Two weeks ago, Mom had said that I was her rod and staff. My guilt faded as I remembered that Elliott might just be about to announce that he needed to separate himself from our problems. Jackie’s words played again in my mind. Appearances mean so much to people like Elliott.

But when he arrived, everything I feared turned out to be totally wrong. In fact, in his endearing, formal way, he was looking for my blessing to marry Mom. He sat next to her on the couch, and addressed me earnestly.

“Carolyn, I guess you know I’ve always been in love with your mother,” he said. “I always thought she was a shining star beyond my reach. But now I know that I can offer her the protection of a husband at a very difficult time in her life.”

I knew I had to warn him. “Elliott, if Mack were ever to go on trial as a serial killer, you have to be aware that the publicity will be awful. Clients of the caliber you have may not be pleased that their financial advisor is in the tabloids on a regular basis.”

Elliott looked at my mother, then back at me. With something of a twinkle in his eyes, he said, “Carolyn, word for word, that is the same speech I heard from your mother. I can promise you this: I would rather tell all my distinguished clients to jump in the lake before I give up one day of being at your mother’s side.”

We had dinner in one of the private dining rooms. It was a low-key celebration. I agreed with their plan that they would be married as soon and as quietly as possible. I drove home that evening feeling so much better about Mom, but also with the strange sensation that Mack was trying to reach me. I could almost feel his presence in the car. Why?

Again there was no sign of the media on Sutton Place. I went to bed and listened to the eleven o’clock news. A clip with part of my statement to the media was shown, and I sounded strident and defensive. By now it had leaked out, or been allowed to leak out, that Leesey had named Mack as her abductor.

I turned off the television. Love or money, I thought as I closed my eyes. That’s what Lucas Reeves said were the causes of the majority of crimes. Love or money. Or lack of love, in Mack’s case.

At three A.M., I heard the buzzing of the intercom. I got out of bed and rushed downstairs to pick it up. It was the concierge. “I’m so sorry, Ms. MacKenzie,” he said. “But someone just handed a note to the doorman and said it was a matter of life and death that you have it immediately.”

He hesitated, then said, “With all the publicity, this may be someone’s terrible idea of a joke, but-”

“Send it up,” I interrupted him.

I stood at the door and waited until Manuel came down the hall and handed me a plain white envelope. The note in it was handwritten on plain bond paper.

It read, “Carolyn I am sending this by messenger because your phone may be wiretapped. Mack just called me. He wants to see both of us. He’s waiting on the corner of 104th Street and Riverside Drive. Meet us there. Elliott.”

T here he is,” Barrott exclaimed, “on the street in front of the Woodshed the night Leesey disappeared. If you look from the angle the security camera caught him, he could see DeMarco’s table. And there he is again, in the same frame as DeMarco, watching Leesey when she was posing for her roommate.”

Accompanied by the security guard, who had been given permission to admit them, they were in Lucas Reeves’s office. They had studied hundreds of pictures in the wall montages, until they could pinpoint the face they were seeking.

“Here’s another one that looks like him, but the hair is shorter,” Gaylor said, a note of excitement detectable in his voice.

It was half past ten. Knowing they had a long night ahead, they hurried back to the office to begin to process information on one more potential suspect.

L ucas Reeves did not sleep well on Wednesday night. “Love or money” was the phrase that ran through his head in a singsong way. At six A.M., as he was waking up, the question that had been eluding him popped into his head. Who would be interested in having a person who is dead seem to be alive?

Love or money.

Money, of course. It was beginning to fall into place like pieces of a puzzle. So absurdly simple if he was right. Lucas, a notoriously early riser, never minded waking up someone when he needed the answer to a question. This time, fortunately, his advisor, a prominent estate lawyer, was also an early riser.

“Can an inheritance trust be broken, or is it always sacrosanct?” Lucas asked him abruptly.

“They’re not easily broken by any means, but if there’s a good and valid reason for dipping into it, the executor will usually be amenable.”

“That’s what I thought. I won’t disturb you any further. Thank you, my friend.”

“Any time, Lucas. But not before seven next time, okay? I get up early, but my wife likes to sleep.”

I pulled on slacks, slipped my feet in sandals, grabbed a long raincoat to cover my pajama top, and ran for the elevator, shoving Elliott’s note into my shoulder bag as I rushed down the hall. In my hurry to get to Mack before he changed his mind about seeing me, I forgot that the garage closed at three A.M. Manuel reminded me of that when I asked for the garage level.

I did the only thing I could do-got outside, into the street, and looked frantically around to flag down a cab. There was none on Sutton Place, but when I turned up Fifty-seventh Street I saw one of those gypsy town cars coming. I must have seemed a wild sight to him as I waved both arms to catch his eye, but he did stop. I got in, and he made a U-turn to go west.

When we got to the corner of 104th and Riverside Drive, there was no one there, I paid the cabby and climbed out onto the quiet street. Then I noticed a van parked down the block, and even though the lights were off, I had a hunch that Elliott and Mack might be in it. I walked closer to get a better look and made a pretense of reaching for a key, as though I were going to the nearest apartment building. Across the street, I could see a large construction site next to a boarded-up old town house on the corner.

Then a man stepped out of the darkened doorway of the next building. For a moment I thought it was Elliott, but then I could see that he was a much younger person, someone whose face was familiar. I recognized him as being the representative of the owner of Mack’s apartment building. I had met him that first time I stopped at the Kramers’, and he had spoken to me on Monday after I left their apartment in tears.

What on earth was he doing here now, I asked myself, and where was Elliott?

“Ms. MacKenzie,” he said hurriedly. “I don’t know if you remember me. I’m Howard Altman.”

“I remember you. Where is Mr. Wallace?”

“He’s with some guy I found camping out in that place. Mr. Olsen owns it. Every once in a while I check on it, even though it’s closed.” He was nodding toward the boarded-up corner building. “The guy I found gave me fifty bucks to call Mr. Wallace for him, then Mr. Wallace promised me another fifty bucks if I’d write a message for you and deliver it.”

“They’re inside that building? What does the other man look like?”

“He’s about thirty, I guess. He started crying when Mr. Wallace came in. They both did.”

Mack was in there, trying to hide in that crumbling ruin. I followed Howard Altman across the street and along the construction fence to the back door of the house. He opened it and gestured me to enter, but as I looked into the darkened interior I panicked and stepped back. I knew something wasn’t right. “Ask Mr. Wallace to come out,” I told Howard.