Daddy's Gone a Hunting (24 page)

54

P
eggy Hotchkiss was in her Staten Island home, settled down in front of the television and watching the same newscast as her son and daughter-in-law. A gasp, followed by a sound that was both moan and sigh, escaped her as she clenched the arms of the club chair where she was sitting.

Her eyes flew to the picture on the mantel over the fireplace of her and Clyde and Skip. It had been taken only a few weeks before she had returned from the pre-Christmas visit to her parents in Florida and found the note and money from Clyde, surrounded by his Vietnam service medals, on the dining room table. She had replaced the picture of them that Clyde took with him with a copy of the one she had given to her mother and father.

Shocked though she had been then, she had also been sure that he would be found quickly and would get help. But he had vanished. For months she had gone to the morgue each time a man of his general height and weight and appearance was found dead without identification. And each time she had stared down as an attendant had lifted the sheet covering the face of the body, then had shaken her head and turned away.

Clyde had vanished without leaving a hint of where he might have gone. After twelve years and no new information, her father had finally persuaded her to have him declared legally dead in court
so that she could collect his life insurance. She had been twenty-seven years old when he disappeared. She had worked as a secretary when Clyde was in the service but then, with a baby, she had decided that it made more sense to get a job at the delicatessen only two blocks away rather than commute into Manhattan again.

Now, forty-one years later, Peggy, still pretty at age sixty-eight, a size twelve where once she had been a size eight, was content with her life. Skip had always been the child any parent would dream of raising. Now the income from the annuity he had purchased to supplement her Social Security allowed her to live comfortably. The home that she had never left had been renovated with every convenience from a steam shower in the upstairs bathroom to a new kitchen and thermal windows. “And heaven knows what else he’ll want me to have,” she would joke to her friends.

Peggy, whose faith was her rock and her strength, was an ecumenical minister in her parish and a regular volunteer at the neighborhood homeless shelter. Years working at the deli had turned her into a superb cook and baker, and the regulars at the shelter always knew when Peggy Hotchkiss had been in the kitchen.

Donald Scanlon and his wife, Joan, had been lifelong neighbors and fast friends of Peggy’s since the day they moved into the neighborhood all those years ago. Joan had been dead for five years and, to his friends, Donald made no secret of the fact that he would love to marry Peggy, but he knew better than to ask. Incredibly to him, Peggy was sure that Clyde was still alive and one day would come back.

In her heart, Peggy knew that even if the door suddenly opened and Clyde came in, they would be strangers. But he had needed her all those years ago and somehow she had failed him. She was so wrapped up in little Skip that she had made excuses for Clyde’s heavy drinking. She had found the hidden wine bottles and decided not to upset him, that it was just a phase. When she had left for the
pre-Christmas visit to her parents in Florida, something had warned her not to go.

“If you recognize any of the people in this photo . . .,” news anchor Dana Tyler was saying as she pointed it out to the viewing audience.

“Recognize . . . recognize . . .” Peggy heard herself sobbing. Desperately she repeated the phone number to call but knew it was jumbled in her mind.

The phone was ringing. She grabbed it. “Hello.”

“Mom, it’s Skip.”

“I have it on, too. I saw it. Skip, what is that number? I didn’t get it straight.”

“Mom, why don’t you let me make the call?”

“They said the picture was found in a van where a homeless man was staying, that he may have been there at the time of that explosion in Long Island City.”

“Mom, I know. And the homeless guy who had it may have found it somewhere years ago.”

Peggy Hotchkiss suddenly became calm. “No, Skip,” she said. “I don’t believe that. I have always suspected that if we ever found your dad, it would be because he was in that kind of condition. Oh, Skip, maybe we have found him or will find him. I knew God would answer my prayers. The waiting has been so long.”

55

O
n Tuesday evening, Doug Connelly returned home in a foul mood. He had gone to Kate’s apartment on the Upper West Side earlier. When he had arrived there, he asked the desk clerk if he would let him in; he told the clerk he had to check on a few things for Kate. Once upstairs and alone inside, he systematically had gone through Kate’s desk. There was nothing interesting in it, he decided.

He knew the combination of her safe. He had overheard her give it to Hannah shortly after it was installed. “Your birthday, three-thirty; my birthday, six-three; and Mom’s birthday, seven-nineteen.”

Doug had never forgotten that. Mom’s birthday, he had thought. How about me? But the information was useful, and if Kate didn’t pull through, he believed the jewelry that had been Susan’s belonged to him. After all, even though Susan inherited some of it, the rest of it I bought for her, he had told himself. It doesn’t matter what Susan stated in her will.

But when he opened the safe, it was empty. Hannah already took the contents, he thought, angrily.

On the way out, he bumped into an acquaintance of Kate’s. Justin Kramer, if that was his name. Decent-looking fellow, he thought, and then dismissed him from his mind.

He had gotten back in the car. As usual, when he was waiting for him, Bernard, his driver, had been listening to the news. “Mr. Connelly,
they were just talking about that guy who was squatting in the van at the complex.”

“What about him?”

“I guess on television they were showing a family picture he had in the van.”

“I should hope that if he has any family and they happen to see it, that they’re smart enough not to claim him,” Doug snapped, clenching his hand involuntarily.

Bernard could see that his boss was in one of his black moods and that the best thing he could do was to keep his head down and his mouth shut. “Are you still planning to stop in at the hospital, Mr. Connelly?” he asked.

“No, I don’t think so. Dr. Patel has assured me that Kate’s fever is broken and that she is stable. I’m very tired. Let’s go home. I won’t be going out again tonight.”

“Yes, sir.”

Sandra had told him that she was going to go to dinner with some of her friends, then to her own apartment for the night. “I want to be here for you, Doug,” she had said, “but I do have to look at the mail and do a few errands in the morning.”

Doug wondered if any of her girlfriends were named Majestic, but it didn’t matter. He could use a rest from Sandra’s constant presence of the last several days. He decided to eat at the private restaurant in his apartment building, and then go to bed early. He needed to be calm and quiet and collect himself.

Jack Worth had called him earlier in the day. “I drove by the complex. The cleanup crew is there. That means the insurance investigators have taken what they want and they’re finished.”

“Well, now that they know there was someone else on the lot, maybe they won’t try to hold up on okaying the payout.”

I need the money, Doug thought. I’ll run out of cash in less than a month if I don’t get it . . . What was Kate doing with Gus at that
hour of the morning in the museum? . . . By any chance did that homeless guy see anything that might jeopardize the settlement? . . . If I had found Kate’s jewelry, I could have pawned it until I got the insurance money, Doug thought. Hannah had one hell of a nerve to clean out Kate’s safe.

It was in this frame of mind that he arrived home at seven o’clock on Tuesday evening. He had no sooner walked in when the phone in the foyer rang. Let it ring, he thought. Almost everyone I know calls me on my cell phone.

But then he remembered that he had given both his cell and landline numbers to the insurance company. It was after office hours but . . . With two quick steps he was across the foyer and picking up the receiver. “Douglas Connelly,” he said.

“Douglas,” an unfamiliar voice said, “this is Father Dan Martin. You might not remember me, but at the time of the tragedy in your family, I was assisting at St. Ignatius Loyola and was present at the funeral mass. We got together a number of times after that but then I was transferred to Rome.”

“I do remember you very well,” Doug said, trying to put warmth in his voice. “You were very kind and I was in a pretty bad way.”

“It was a terrible time for you. I am so sorry about what is happening now. I stopped at the hospital today to see Kate and I administered the Sacrament of the Sick to her. I saw Hannah there and spoke with her, and now I’d very much like to connect with you again.”

There is no way I want to connect with you, Doug thought. I don’t need anyone to tell me that he’ll pray for me and for Kate. I don’t think I’ve been inside a church since the funeral. Rosie Masse always took the girls when they were growing up.

And I really don’t want this priest around here when Sandra’s on the scene. But if he’s free tonight, maybe I can get rid of him fast. “Father, are you calling from St. Ignatius?”

“Yes, I’m living here at the rectory.”

“Then you’re in the neighborhood. Have you eaten dinner yet?”

“Actually, I’m just on my way out to meet an old friend for dinner tonight. Maybe another night? I’m so glad I happened to catch you.”

“Sure. I’ll check in with you later in the week, then,” Doug said.

“Perfect.”

With a sigh, Doug replaced the receiver on the cradle. He’d call the priest back when hell froze over, he thought, then walked into the library. He went straight for the bar and poured a strong double scotch for himself. Sip it slowly, he warned himself. Get the edge off. But before you get too relaxed, call the hospital and ask about Kate. It would be just like Hannah to ask if I visited Kate tonight.

The nurse in ICU was reassuring. “I’m just going off my shift, Mr. Connelly. As you know, Kate’s fever broke this morning. She’s had a very good day.”

“That’s great to hear. Thank you for the update,” Doug said.

A thought was nagging in his subconscious. Was Kate awake when the priest was with her? He had administered the Sacrament of the Sick. Did that mean Kate had possibly been aware enough to talk to him?

And if she had, what had she told him?

56

O
n Tuesday evening, Father Dan Martin picked up his former pastor, eighty-seven-year-old Father Michael Ferris, at the Jesuit retirement home in Riverdale, the upper west section of the Bronx. He had offered Father Ferris his choice of places to dine, knowing full well that he would elect to go to Neary’s restaurant, the iconic Irish pub on East Fifty-seventh Street in Manhattan.

Opened on St. Patrick’s Day, March 17, more than forty-five years ago, it had been Father Mike’s favorite dining place when he was pastor of St. Ignatius Loyola and he still loved to go there.