Laurie told him it was an example of a crime that people talked about for generations because of its horror, but also because there were still so many lingering questions about the case. Bruno Hauptmann, an immigrant from Germany who was executed for kidnapping the Lindbergh baby, was almost certainly the one who made the ladder that went to the baby’s bedroom. But how did he know the nanny went to dinner every night and left the baby alone for forty-five minutes at exactly that time? How did Hauptmann know that-or who told him?
Then she told Brett about the unsolved murder of one of the identical twin daughters of Senator Charles H. Percy. It happened at the beginning of his first campaign for the Senate in 1966. He was elected, but the crime was never solved, and the questions remained: was the sister who was murdered the intended victim? And why didn’t the dog bark if a stranger had entered the house?
Now Laurie leaned back in her chair. She had told Brett the point is that when you start to mention cases like this, everyone has a theory about it. “We’ll do a reality show about crimes that are anywhere from twenty to thirty years old, where we can get the point of view of the people who were closest to the victim, and I have the perfect case for the first show: the Graduation Gala,” she’d said.
That’s when Brett really got interested, Laurie thought. Living in Westchester County, he knew all about it: Twenty years ago, four young women who grew up together in Salem Ridge graduated from four different colleges. The stepfather of one of them, Robert Nicholas Powell, gave what he called a “Graduation Gala” to honor all four girls. Three hundred guests, black tie, champagne and caviar, fireworks, you name it. After the party, his stepdaughter and the other three graduates stayed overnight. In the morning, Powell’s wife, Betsy Bonner Powell, a popular, glamorous forty-two-year-old socialite, was found suffocated in her bed. The crime was never solved. Rob, as Powell was known, was now seventy-eight years old, in excellent physical and mental shape, and still living in the house.
Powell never remarried, Laurie thought. He had recently given an interview on The O’Reilly Factor in which he said he would do anything to clear up the mystery of his wife’s death, and he knew that his stepdaughter and her friends all felt the same way. They all believed that until the truth came out, people would wonder if one of them was the murderer who took Betsy’s life.
That’s when I got the go-ahead from Brett to contact Powell and the four graduates to see if they would participate, Laurie thought exultantly.
It was time to share the good news with Grace and Jerry. She picked up her phone and told her two assistants to come in. A moment later the door of her office flew open.
Grace Garcia, her twenty-five-year-old administrative assistant, was wearing a short red wool dress over cotton leggings and high-button boots. Her waist-length black hair was twisted up and clamped with a comb. Tendrils that had escaped from the comb framed her heart-shaped face. Heavy but expertly applied mascara accentuated her lively dark eyes.
Jerry Klein was one step behind Grace. Long and lanky, he settled into one of the chairs at Laurie’s desk. As usual, he was wearing a turtleneck and a cardigan sweater. It was his claim that he intended to make his one dark blue suit and his one tuxedo last for twenty years. Laurie had no doubt that he would succeed. Now twenty-six, he had joined the company as a summer intern three years earlier. He had turned out to be an indispensable production assistant.
“I won’t keep you in suspense,” Laurie announced. “Brett gave us the go-ahead.”
“I knew he would!” Grace exclaimed.
“I knew he had from the expression on your face when you got off the elevator,” Jerry insisted.
“No you didn’t. I have a poker face,” Laurie told him. “All right, the first order of business is for me to contact Robert Powell. If I get the go-ahead from him, from what I saw in that interview he gave, his stepdaughter and her three friends will very likely go along with us.”
“Especially since they’ll get paid very well to cooperate, and not one of them has any real money,” Jerry said, his voice thoughtful as he recalled the background information he had gathered for the potential series. “Betsy’s daughter, Claire Bonner, is a social worker in Chicago. She never married. Nina Craig is divorced, lives in Hollywood, makes a living as an extra in films. Alison Schaefer is a pharmacist in a small drugstore in Cleveland. Her husband is on crutches. He was the victim of a hit-and-run driver twenty years ago. Regina Callari moved to St. Augustine, Florida. She has a small real estate agency. Divorced, one child in college.”
“The stakes are high,” Laurie cautioned. “Brett has already reminded me that the last two series were flops.”
“Did he mention that your first two are still running?” Grace asked, indignant.
“No, he didn’t, and he won’t. And I feel in my bones that we have a potential winner with this one. If Robert Powell goes along with us, I almost bet the others will as well,” Laurie said, then added fervently, “At least I hope and pray that they will.”
2
First Deputy Commissioner Leo Farley of the New York Police Department had been rumored to be appointed the next police commissioner when he unexpectedly put in his retirement papers the day after his son-in-law’s funeral. Now, more than five years later, Leo had never looked back at that decision. At sixty-three, he was a cop to his fingertips. He’d always planned to be one until he hit mandatory retirement, but something more important had changed his plans.
The shocking, cold-blooded murder of Greg and the threat that the elderly witness had overheard-“Timmy, tell your mother that she’s next, then it’s your turn”-had been sufficient reason to decide to dedicate his life to protecting his daughter and grandson. Ramrod straight, average height, with a full head of iron-gray hair and a wiry, disciplined body, Leo Farley spent his waking hours on constant alert.
He knew that there was only so much he could do for Laurie. She had a job she both needed and loved. She took public transportation, went for long jogs in Central Park, and in warm weather often ate lunch in one of the pocket parks near her office.
Timmy was another matter. In Leo’s mind there was nothing to prevent Greg’s killer from deciding to go after Timmy first, so he appointed himself as his guardian. It was Leo who walked Timmy to Saint David’s School every morning, and it was Leo who was waiting for him at dismissal time. If Timmy had activities after school, Leo unobtrusively stood guard beside the skating rink or the playground.
To Leo, Greg Moran was the son he would have created for himself, if that had been possible. It was now ten years since they had met in the emergency room at Lenox Hill Hospital. He and Eileen had frantically rushed there after they received the call that their twenty-six-year-old daughter, Laurie, had been hit by a cab on Park Avenue and was unconscious.
Greg, tall and impressive even in his green hospital togs, had greeted them with the firm assurance, “She’s come to, and she’ll be fine. A broken ankle and a concussion. We will observe her, but she’ll be fine.”
At those words, Eileen, desperate with worry about her only child, had fainted, and Greg had another patient on his hands. He grabbed Eileen quickly before she fell. He never left our lives again, Leo thought. He and Laurie were engaged three months later. He was our rock when Eileen died, only a year after that.
How could anyone have shot him? The exhaustive investigation had left no stone unturned to find someone who might have had a grudge against Greg, unthinkable as that was to anyone who knew him. After they had quickly eliminated friends and classmates from consideration, the records had been scoured in the two hospitals where Greg had worked as a resident and staff director to see if any patient or a family member had ever accused him of a mistaken diagnosis or treatment that had resulted in a permanent injury or death. Nothing had come to light.