Mack’s real voice with home movies. Had you fooled, didn’t he?”
Altman’s voice was becoming more and more shrill. “We only have fifteen minutes before it’s all over. They’re going to demolish this building. But I want to tell you. I dropped that note in the collection basket. Uncle Elliott was worried that you were going to start looking for Mack. Elliott had me leave it there. Lil Kramer saw me in church. I saw her look at me a couple of times. But then she thought I was Mack because you told her he’d been at that Mass. Good-bye, Carolyn. Good-bye, Leesey.”
For the last time, I heard his steps retreating. Fifteen minutes. This building was going to be demolished in fifteen minutes. I am going to die, I thought, and Mom is going to marry Elliott…
Leesey was trembling. I was sure she understood what he had said. I kept holding her hand and moistening her lips, talking to her, begging her to hang on, that everyone was looking for us. But now I did not believe what I was saying. I believed that Leesey and I would be the final victims of this madman and Elliott Wallace. In that moment I thought that at least I would soon be with Mack and Daddy.
77
W e’ve got him. He’s on 104th and Riverside Drive,” Larry Ahearn yelled.
An alarm went out to all the squad cars in the vicinity. Sirens wailing, they rushed to the scene.
The wrecking ball was in place. A delighted Derek Olsen saw that his business rival Doug Twining was inside the cockpit of the crane.
“One.” Derek jumped up and began to count.
“Two.” Then his triumphant cheer died on his lips. Someone was pushing open the boarded window on the second floor of the old town house. Someone was swinging his legs over the sill and waving. Altman. It was Howie Altman.
The wrecking ball was swinging toward the house. At the last instant, Twining spotted Altman and swung the controls so that the ball missed the house by inches.
Squad cars, tires screeching, were rounding the corner.
“Come back! Come back!” A screaming Howie Altman was running along the roof of the porch, waving his arms at the crane. As he began to jump up and down, the rotted wood caved in and the house began to crumble, floor by floor toppling into each other. Seeing what was happening, Altman dove back through the window in time to have tons of debris crash down on him.
Police poured out of the squad cars. “The basement,” one of them yelled, “the basement. If they’re there, it’s their only chance.”
78
T he ceiling was falling around us. I pulled myself up and tried to throw my body over Leesey, who was now barely breathing. I felt a chunk of plaster hit my shoulder and then my head and arm. Too late, too late, I thought. Like Mack and those other girls, Leesey and I were doomed to end our lives here.
Then I heard the sound of the outside basement door being pulled open, and shouting voices approaching me from above. That was when I let myself drift off and escape from the pain. I guess they sedated me pretty heavily, because it was two days before I really woke up. Mother was sitting on a chair by the window of the hospital room, watching over me as she had done on 9/11. As we had that day, we cried together in each other’s arms, this time for Mack, the honorable young man, son and brother, who had died because he wanted to accept his responsibilities.
Epilogue
One year later
W hen the books were checked, we learned that Elliott had robbed us of a fortune. It was clear, as Altman had ranted, that Mack had realized something was wrong with his trust fund, and the realization had cost him his life.
It was a miracle that Leesey was still alive. She had been tied up on that dirt floor for sixteen days and nights, unable to move, Altman alternately threatening to kill her and then taunting her about jumping into the SUV outside the Woodshed when he told her Nick had sent him to drive her home. He had given her only a few sips of water each day. Starving and dehydrated, she was in extremely critical condition when she arrived at the hospital. Just as Mom had kept her vigil at my side, Leesey’s father and brother kept theirs in her hospital room, coaxing and begging her back to life.
The Andrews have become our very good friends. Dr. David Andrews, Leesey’s Dad, regularly invites Mom and me for dinner at his club in Greenwich. Their friendship has been a great comfort as Mom and I struggle with the pain of Mack’s death. I know we have been a help to Leesey as she recovers emotionally from her terrible ordeal. Mother sold the Sutton Place apartment and now lives on Central Park West. I notice that Dr. David comes down frequently to go to dinner and the theatre with her.
We managed to keep from the media the full story of Mack’s reason for becoming suspicious that his trust fund was not in order. Of course, I told Mom about Mack’s son. It was not my place to keep it from her. Dr. Barbara Hanover Galbraith came to see us and told us how much she regretted believing that Mack had abandoned her. Even then she was not completely honest. She did not admit that she had borne Mack’s child until I confronted her. Then she begged us to wait until he is older to tell him the truth, and we have reluctantly agreed. Mom and I wish with all of our hearts that we could know and be close to Mack’s son. We have quietly attended plays and concerts at his school, St. David’s, and it is like seeing Mack again. They called him Gary. To Mom and me he will always be Charles MacKenzie the Third.
The Kramers are enjoying life in Pennsylvania. When they learned the truth about Mack’s disappearance, they came to apologize to Mother and me. Lil told us that because she had gone to prison for stealing when she was a young woman, she was hypersensitive when Mack asked her about his watch. It was found in Howard Altman’s apartment. We’ll never know whether he stole it from Mack’s college apartment or took it after he killed him.
Lil also explained what she had found in Mack’s room that had made Gus so angry. “It was a silly note making fun of me, saying that I wanted him to take me dancing, but it hurt my feelings,” she said. That, of course, was the note Nick had written and then thrown away. Obviously he had been right about the fact that Lil was a bit nosey. When I asked him about it, he said he had crumpled it and thrown it in the wastebasket near Mack’s desk. That is why Lil thought Mack had written it.
I’m happy to report that I’m one of the busy Assistant District Attorneys of Manhattan and regularly work with the detectives who started by suspecting me and now are my close friends and colleagues.
Nick and I were married three months ago. We have turned the loft into a charming New York apartment. The Woodshed is doing well. One of our favorite eating places is his father’s newly reopened Pasta and Pizza in Queens. I’ve always said I would have four children, and we’re looking forward to having the first one before too long. I hope it’s a boy. His name will be Charles MacKenzie DeMarco.
We’ll call him Mack.
