and took a step back, the haze of fruit flies lifting in front of him as if they were wavering veils of ash. The basket was filled with rotten plums, peaches that were soft and brown and dimpled with mold, apples that had been gnawed to the core, bananas that were black and alive with maggots.
Michael knew who had sent it even before he reached inside and removed the envelope taped to the wicker handle. Inside was a note, precise and neatly typed: “Three weeks, Mr. Archer. That’s how old this fruit is, and that’s how much longer we’re giving you to come up with our money. By then, the sum will be one million dollars. Please have the money by then. If you don’t, our generosity will have run out and you’ll be giving your mother some unexpected company.”
Shaken, Michael crumpled the note and tossed it aside. He had never mentioned his mother’s death to anyone, and yet somehow these people knew. But how? And how did they know where I live? I just moved here.
He looked at his watch and saw with a start that it was seven-thirty. His father had requested his presence at eight sharp. As Michael rushed out of the apartment, the door locking shut behind him, he realized that if he was late for this meeting, it very well might cost him his life.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
The sun went behind a cloud and a shadow stretched across Manhattan, leaving Louis Ryan’s face gray in its presence.
“I want to talk to you about your mother’s death.”
Michael straightened in his chair. They were in his father’s office. Louis was seated behind his desk; Michael in front of it. He thought Louis had asked him here to discuss Leana Redman and the party he had been sent to last night, not his mother.
“Why?”
“There are things you don’t know.”
“What things?”
“A lot of things.” Louis turned in his chair. “But before I begin, I want you to know I realize you should have been told this years ago, when you were young enough to understand it. Maybe, if you knew what I’ve gone through over the past thirty-one years, we could have been closer-as a father and son should be.”
He made an effort to smile but failed, his eyes belying the grief that still lingered within him. “I would have liked that.”
Michael raised an eyebrow. That was news to him.
“Do you remember what happened when your mother passed away?”
“She was in a car accident.”
Louis stepped to the far right wall of windows, where he watched workers remove the red ribbon from the center of The Redman International Building. “It wasn’t an accident. Your mother was murdered and what George Redman did to her was brutal.”
Michael couldn’t have heard him right. The sudden roaring in his ears dulled his father’s words, making it difficult for him to hear everything Louis was saying.
“…George and I were friends at Harvard…”
“…my partner in a development called Pine Gardens…”
“…Yes, I admit I lied in court. I even admit I used George. But I grew up poor. George had all the money in the world. The only reason I asked him to be my partner was because I thought we’d need his father to cosign a loan for us. When I learned I could buy Pine Gardens on my own, I did, and so he sued me…”
Michael shut his eyes. This isn’t happening.
“For years George tried to get his share of Pine Gardens. For years, he tried to prove we had a partnership. I refused to let him have any of it.” He paused. “That decision cost your mother her life.”
Michael looked up at his father, his concentration intense.
“Your mother was murdered just two days after Redman lost his final appeal in court. It was late and it was snowing. She was returning home from a friend’s house when George blew out her tires with a shotgun. Your mother lost control of the car, skidded in the snow and tumbled over the bridge that led to our house. It was a seventy foot drop. She didn’t have a chance…”
Michael looked at his father for some sign of the lie he was sure he was telling, but there was none. It was obvious he was telling the truth. For Michael, it was as if someone had shot him.
“I was never able to prove it,” Louis said. “But I know it was him. George Redman killed my wife-your mother. The moment I learned her tires were flattened by a shotgun, I knew it was Redman who pulled the trigger.”
“How could you know that?”
“Besides having the perfect motive-wanting revenge against me-George Redman is an excellent marksman. Once, when we were in college, he took me skeet shooting on his father’s yacht. Even with the rolling of the waves, George rarely missed. But George is smart. He got rid of whatever gun he used and made certain he had an alibi. When the police questioned him, he told them he was with Judge William Cranston’s daughter, Elizabeth Cranston, now Elizabeth Redman, during the night of the shooting.
“I don’t know how he did it, but he got Elizabeth to lie for him. Because when the police questioned her, she confirmed it and George was dropped as a suspect. A week later, the police concluded that poachers were hunting in the woods on either side of the bridge. They said a stray shot flattened your mother’s tires. Despite pressure from me and a team of lawyers, the case wasn't reopened and George Redman walked free.”
It was as if all those years of never understanding his father came to an end. Now Michael knew why Louis never discussed Anne’s death, why he became irritated whenever the subject was brought up, why he, Michael, hadn’t been allowed to attend his mother’s funeral. Now he understood his father’s mood swings and those evenings, as a child, when he heard Louis weeping in his bedroom. Now it made sense.
“Why didn’t you tell me this from the beginning?” Michael asked.
“Too many reasons,” Louis said. “But the main reason is that I didn’t want to hurt you. You were just a child when Anne died. You barely knew her. How could I tell you then what he did to your mother? If you were me, would you have told your three-year-old son that his mother had been murdered? Would you have brought him to her funeral, knowing how upsetting it would be for him to see her like that? I doubt it. And besides, you wouldn’t have understood.”
“You could have told me when I was older.”
“Agreed,” Louis said. “And I wanted to. But every time I tried to tell you, every time I thought the moment was right, I couldn’t find the words. I couldn’t say that your mother was murdered. I still find it difficult to say. And so I allowed you to live in the comfort of not knowing the truth. I know you won’t see it this way, but in a sense, I’ve spared you the anger I’ve had to live with for years.”
“Why are you telling me now?”
Louis went to his desk and reached for the pack of cigarettes next to his picture of Anne. He shook one out, lit it with a lighter and exhaled a plume of blue smoke. “Because the time is right.”
He handed Michael the newspaper his secretary gave him earlier that morning. As Michael read about the recent, sharp decline in Redman International’s stock, Louis said, “Thirty-one years ago, I was unable to put that bastard away for what he did to your mother. Now, with his stock at an all-time low, I finally have the kind of money and power it’s going to take to bury him and each member of his family. They’ll all pay for what George Redman did to your mother. But I’ll need your help.”
Before he could react, Michael glimpsed the front-page picture of the spotlight that lay crushed in front of The Redman International Building. For a moment, he just stared at it, his mind making connections he never knew existed. He looked up at Louis. “You rigged those spotlights with explosives.”
“Let’s just say I made it happen.”
“But you nearly killed a man.”
“Not the right one, Michael. George Redman is still alive.”
Michael tossed the paper onto the desk. “You’re going to kill him, aren’t you?”
