Daddy's Gone a Hunting by Mary Higgins Clark
As quickly as he could without being rude, he managed to cut off the outpouring of condolences he was hearing from his boss. “It’s going to be much easier for my mother and for me to know that Tracey’s remains will be in the family grave with my father,” he said. Then, once again, he declined the sympathetic offer to take the day off and insisted that he would attend the meeting.
He had made the call as he was sitting at the breakfast table with his mother. She had arrived last night on what was supposed to be a five o’clock flight from Chicago but because of the snowy weather there, the flight was delayed. The hour’s difference in time between New York and Chicago meant that it was past ten o’clock when she arrived at LaGuardia Airport, and it was almost eleven by the time they had collected her bags and taken a cab to the apartment.
When they arrived, it was to find the table already set and the food Jessie had ordered waiting for them. A few minutes later they were sharing the platter of assorted sandwiches and the sliced pineapple and strawberries, and then choosing from the selection of petite dessert tarts Jessie had prepared. He had told her that the first thing his mother ever did when she returned home, after she had been out, was to make a cup of tea. Last night Mark had found that the kettle had already been filled, and the teapot with teabags in it was on the stove.
Now Martha Sloane, a robe over her long cotton nightgown, said, “I can’t believe I slept this late, and I can’t believe I slept at all. When I got here last night, I was so afraid that I’d just lie awake thinking and thinking. I didn’t even realize how hungry I was. I hadn’t had anything yesterday except a piece of toast at breakfast. But after that lovely supper, and then finding the bed all turned down and ready for me, I guess I just relaxed and oh, how I needed to do that.”
“You sure did, Mom. You looked exhausted.”
Mark was already dressed to go to the office, except that his collar was open and he had not yet put on a tie. He had earlier told his mother about going to Hannah Connelly’s apartment before he had phoned her on Wednesday evening to tell her about Tracey, and that one of Hannah’s friends, Jessica Carlson, had come down with him while he made the call.
“I guess you know that I was pretty upset, Mom. I hope I didn’t make it harder for you,” he said now.
“No, and I’m glad that you weren’t alone when you called me. It’s good that you had a friend with you.”
“I had just met Jess a few minutes earlier,” he explained. “No, that’s not quite true. I met her and Hannah Connelly the night I moved in here last week. We rode up in the elevator together. Do you realize how impossible it would have been to imagine that we, who were perfect strangers, would meet and then find out that Hannah’s family owns the property where Tracey’s body was found?”
When he spoke of Tracey, he was deliberately using the word body. He did not want his mother dwelling on the image of what had been found in the sinkhole. A skeleton with a cheap necklace still clasped around its throat.
They sat quietly for a moment, then Martha said, “It does seem impossible, Mark. Do you remember that quote from Byron, ‘stranger than fiction’?”
“Yes, of course.”
“’Tis strange—but true, for truth is always strange. Stranger than fiction.”
“That certainly applies in this case,” Mark said, fervently. He sipped his second cup of coffee. He knew that now they were both preparing themselves for what was going to happen. After his mother got dressed, they were going to the medical examiner’s office to arrange for Tracey’s remains to be shipped to the funeral director in Kewanee. Next week there would be a funeral mass, and Tracey would be buried with their father in the cemetery only a few miles from the house. Tracey would finally be home.
Putting off the moment when he would once again suggest that he go alone to the medical examiner’s office, he said, “Mom, Jess is a lawyer. She’s very smart and she’s very kind.”
Martha Sloane’s maternal instinct told her that her son liked this lady very much. “I’d love to meet her at some point, Mark. Tell me about her.”
“She’s about thirty. She’s tall, slender, with lovely red hair down to her shoulders.” He did not tell his mother that when he had finished speaking with her the other night, after he hung up the phone, he had burst out sobbing and buried his face in his arms at the table. Jessie had leaned over, put her arms around him, and said, “Let it out, Mark. You need to cry.”
Later, when Jessie knew he hadn’t had dinner, she had scrambled eggs for both of them. Then yesterday, she had phoned to see how he was doing, and when she learned his mother was coming in fairly late, she asked if it would be okay to leave something light to eat in his apartment. “I’m sure she won’t want a heavy dinner,” she had said, “so if you drop off your key in Hannah’s mailbox, I’ll get something in for you both. There’s a gourmet deli in your neighborhood that you probably don’t know about yet. I’ll pick up something there. Anyhow, Hannah and I will be going out to dinner nearby, so it’s simply no trouble.”
Martha Sloane pushed back her chair. “Now, Mark, before you start suggesting again that I wait for you here while you go to make Tracey’s arrangements, I’m going to shower and get dressed. We will do this together.”
Mark knew better than to argue. He cleared the table and loaded the few breakfast dishes in the dishwasher, then walked into the living room to wait for his mother. He sensed that there was something different about the room. He looked around and then realized what it was. The pictures he had laid on the floor in anticipation of hanging them over the weekend were already on the wall in the exact spots he had marked for them.
Obviously, Jessie had done that, too. I’ll invite her to have dinner with Mom and me tonight, Mark thought. I know Mom wants to meet her and thank her for being so thoughtful. And so do I. I’ll call her right now.
When he walked into his bedroom to make the call and to get his tie and jacket, Mark had a spring to his step that had not been there since before Tracey left home. Since the time when she used to pitch to him in the backyard or take him to the movies and buy him candy or popcorn. Or both.
88
Nick Greco did not realize when he began his research into the Connelly family on Thursday afternoon that he would find reams of material on Dennis Francis Connelly, the brilliant, powerful, and eccentric grandfather of Kate and Hannah Connelly.
Dozens of articles had been written about him. Many of them began by chronicling his humble beginnings in Dublin, where Dennis had been a street urchin who was arrested several times for stealing. Then, after finally staying in school long enough to finish the eighth grade at age sixteen, he completed high school in only two years, won a scholarship to Trinity College, and graduated summa cum laude in less than three years.
The pictures of him as a teenager and in his early twenties captured a thin, somewhat tall figure, unsmiling, and with eyes that seemed to look at the world with angry resentment.
And if he felt resentment, he had a right to feel it, Greco thought as he read that Connelly’s father and uncle, who were twins, had died when they were only twenty-six years old, burned to death when they were trapped in a raging fire that swept through the dismal factory where they both worked seven days a week.
The twenty-four-year-old mother of Dennis had been six months pregnant when his father died. Three months later she gave birth to twin boys, so small and already malnourished that they survived only a few days. Then, at age seven, Dennis had begun to try to support his fragile and heartbroken mother with a combination of begging and working odd jobs. And sometimes by stealing.
When he was ten, a kindly old woman, who could not live alone, had hired his mother as a housekeeper. Giving both of them a home, she soon recognized how smart he was and persuaded Dennis to go back to school.
He was an angry and proud man, Greco thought as he skimmed through the rest of the articles about the early life of the founder of the Connelly complex.
He quickly read th
At that point in his research, Nick turned off his computer and took his regular train home. On Friday morning he was back at his desk by eight o’clock and resumed his Internet research.
His interest deepened when he read that Connelly had finally married at age fifty-five because, as he had put it, “a man wants to know that his descendants will enjoy the fruits of his labor.”
Not the best or most romantic reason to marry, Greco thought as he studied the formal wedding picture of Dennis Connelly and his timid-looking, thirty-five-year-old bride, Bridget O’Connor.
According to the New York Times birth announcement, their son Douglas was born on December 31st of that year. A year later, their son Connor’s first birthday was celebrated in January at their Manhattan townhouse.
What’s that about? Nick asked himself. A year later Douglas would have had a first birthday, too. Was Connor adopted? The answer came when Nick read an article in a small religious magazine in which Dennis Connelly had bared his soul to a sympathetic priest. He had shared with him that his sons were really identical twins, one born on December 31, the other four minutes later, on January 1 of the following year.
He related that he had lived in constant fear of what he regarded to be the family curse, as he put it, that had begun when his father and his father’s twin had perished in a factory fire, and then his own twin brothers had died at birth. “My mother never had enough to eat when she was pregnant with them,” Dennis Connelly had told the priest.
Then he admitted that because his twin sons were actually born in two different years, he had hoped to avoid the curse that had befallen his father, his uncle, and his siblings. He explained that he never referred to them as twins, nor had he allowed anyone else to do so. “They never wore matching outfits. We never celebrated their birthdays together. And they always went to different schools.”
It was clear to Nick Greco from everything he had read about the life of Dennis Connelly that his early traumatic losses had profoundly affected the way he raised his sons. He wanted them to be competitive on every level. He wanted them to be strong. He wanted them to play football on varsity teams at separate colleges. If they were injured, they were expected to play through the pain and recover quickly. Even when they were small children, he had no sympathy if they complained of any ailment. If they fell off their bikes, he made them get right back on.
In an interview when Dennis’s son Douglas was twenty-one years old and had just graduated from Brown University with both academic and athletic honors, Douglas had been asked, “Do you feel that you have had a privileged life?”
“Yes and no,” he had answered. “I know that by almost any standard, I would be considered privileged. On the other hand, I remember reading that the son of President Calvin Coolidge had a miserable job one summer and his friend asked him why he would take it when his father was president of the United States. His answer was, ‘If your father was my father, you’d have taken that job, too. My father thinks the same way. He has never cut us any slack.’”
Greco leaned back in his chair for a long minute, struck with the realization that he had broken through. The background is the answer, he thought. The background has always been the answer.
To verify what he now believed he knew, Greco returned to his computer search to see if he could find any coverage of the funeral of Connor and Susan Connelly.
89
Hannah did not know why she was feeling so uneasy. Justin phoned her at noon on Friday. “How are your father and sister?”
“I saw Kate this morning. She was restless, but they’re moving her to a private room today, so obviously she’s getting better, which is wonderful.”
“Hannah, you still sound worried. How is your father?”
“He called me about an hour ago. I hate to say it, but I think he’s more worried that Kate is going to admit that she and Gus together set the explosion than he is relieved that his daughter, my sister, is going to be all right. With him, it seems it’s always been about the money, and it always will be.”
“When are you going to see Kate again?”
“I always stop by when I’m leaving work.”
After Justin reluctantly said good-bye to her, he debated about sending flowers to Kate, since she would now be in a private room. Then he thought, No, I have a better idea. When she has recovered a little more, I will bring the bromeliad plant to her room. Satisfied, he turned back to the folder on his desk.
It contained documents he had prepared regarding investment strategy for a widow who did not have the faintest idea of how to manage her considerable estate. “I just charged whatever I wanted on my AmEx,” she had told Justin, “and my husband, Bob, paid all the bills.”
Bob made big money, Justin thought, and he spent a lot of money, too, but it was certainly his to spend.
His thoughts turned back to Hannah. From what she tells me, her father has been living beyond his income for a long time. No wonder he’s worried that the insurance claim will be denied. From what she said, the antique furniture in that museum was insured for nearly $20 million. That’s an awful lot of money to let slip through your fingers.
90
Frank Ramsey awakened on Friday morning at six o’clock, as usual. He had slept well, despite the unsettling phone call from Peggy Hotchkiss, because he had been weary. But as soon as he woke up, a heavy sense of having let her down came over him. He showered, dressed, and went downstairs. The coffee was on a timer and he poured a cup and began to sip as, with the other hand, he opened the refrigerator and took out a container of orange juice and then a package of blueberries. From there he went to the pantry, viewed his choice of breakfast cereals, and selected one.
“Sit down,” Celia told him. “I’ll put breakfast out.”
He had not heard her come down the stairs, but as always, he was glad she was there. She was wearing satin pajamas with a matching robe that came down to her knees. It was one of his gifts to her on her last birthday. The saleswoman had assured him that his wife would love this set and fortunately she had been right. Ceil did love it. And he loved her in it.
“I’m sorry about that call last night,” she said matter-of-factly as she poured orange juice into a glass. “But from what you told me, I can understand why Mrs. Hotchkiss was so upset.”
“So can I,” Frank agreed. “Ceil, there’s no question that her husband admitted punching Jamie. Drunk or not, that was a nasty thing to do, and it certainly proves that he had a hair-trigger temper and was capable of violence.”
He gave her a grateful glance as she refilled his coffee cup. “And Ceil, it’s entirely possible that Hotchkiss was in the area twenty-eight years ago and somehow crossed paths with Tracey Sloane. Just about every man who was ever on the list as possibly being connected to Tracey was checked and rechecked and it’s always come to a dead end. Maybe Clyde is the one who killed her.” He paused. “Obviously the fire department is not involved in that investigation,” he said.
“It sounds like you’re trying to convince yourself that Hotchkiss killed one or both of those girls, but you’re just not there,” Celia commented.
Frank shrugged. “I think you know me too well. I am trying to convince myself. But I think we’re all missing something.”
Celia poured herself a cup of coffee and sat across from him. She knew that her husband used her as a sounding board when he was thinking aloud. “So what do you think you’re missing?” she asked.
“Well, for example, Lottie Schmidt.”
“That poor woman! Come on, Frank.”
“That poor woman is a consummate liar and a consummate phony. The fact is that Lottie Schmidt has come up with the most fantastic yarn to explain how Gus was able to buy that house in Minnesota for their daughter. According to her, Gus came from an aristocratic family in Germany and when the Nazis took over, they confiscated all of his f
“My guess is that Gus came by that money honestly, one way or the other, and Lottie is worried she’ll be in trouble with the IRS because he didn’t pay taxes on whatever money he received.”
“There’s more to it than that,” Frank said firmly. “And somehow I think it has to do with the whole mess surrounding the Connelly fire and the fact that there’s no question that it was deliberately set.”
Three hours later, the computer expert who had been tracking Lottie’s story about Gus’s background called Frank as he and Nathan were catching up on their emails in their Fort Totten office. “Frank, I’ve got the whole Schmidt background for you. I just emailed it. You’re going to love it. It’s pretty much what you told me you suspected. But she didn’t just make the whole thing up. She actually came pretty close to the truth. Close but no cigar.”
“I can’t wait,” Frank Ramsey told him. “Lottie Schmidt put on such a good act of being an aristocratic wife that Nathan and I almost kissed her hand. As she was throwing us out of her house,” he added.
91
Attempting to exude an air of confidence, Jack Worth strode into the same room in the Manhattan DA’s office on Friday morning where he had been questioned the day before. He had received the call to come back in from Detective Stevens less than an hour before. He took a seat at the table opposite Stevens, cheerfully noting to him that their meetings were getting to be a routine. Then Jack added emphatically that he had absolutely nothing to hide.