Chapter Nine
Fifty-two-year-old Winifred Johnson never entered the
lobby of her employer's apartment building on Park Avenue
without feeling intimidated. She had worked with Adam
Cauliff for three years, first at Walters and Arsdale, and
then she had left with him last fall, when he started his
own company. He relied on her from the beginning.
Even so, whenever she stopped by his apartment, she
couldn't help feeling that one day the doorman would
instruct her to use the delivery entrance around the
corner.
She knew that her attitude was the result of her parents'
lifelong resentment over imagined slights. Ever since she
could remember, Winifred's ears had been filled with their
plaintive tales of people who had been rude to them: They
use their little bit of authority on people like us who
can't fight back. Expect it, Winifred. That's the kind of
world it is. Her father had gone to his grave railing
against all the indignities he had suffered at the hands
of his employer of forty years, and her mother was now in
a nursing home, where complaints of supposed slights and
deliberate neglect continued unabated.
Winifred thought about her mother as the doorman smilingly
opened the door for her. A few years ago it had been
possible for her to move her mother to a fancy, new
nursing facility, but even that hadn't stopped the endless
flow of complaints. Happiness -- even satisfaction -- did
not seem to be possible for her. Winifred had recognized
this same trait in herself and felt helpless. Until I
smartened up, she told herself with a secret smile.
A thin woman, almost frail in appearance, Winifred
typically dressed in conservativebusiness suits and
limited her jewelry to button earrings and a strand of
pearls. Quiet to the point that people often forgot she
was even around, she absorbed everything, noticed
everything and remembered everything. She had worked for
Robert Walters and Len Arsdale from the time she graduated
from secretarial school, but in all those years neither
man had ever appreciated or even seemed to notice the fact
that she had come to know everything there was to know
about the construction business. Adam Cauliff, however,
had picked up on it immediately. He appreciated her; he
understood her true worth. He used to joke with her,
saying, "Winifred, a lot of people had better hope you
never write your autobiography."
Robert Walters overheard him and became both upset and
unpleasant. But then Walters had always bullied her
unmercifully; he never had been nice to her. Let him pay
for that, Winifred thought. And he will.
Nell never appreciated him. Adam didn't need a wife with a
career of her own and a famous grandfather who made so
many demands on her that she didn't have enough time for
her husband. Sometimes Adam would say, "Winifred, Nell's
busy with the old man again. I don't want to eat alone.
Let's grab a bite."
He deserved better. Sometimes Adam would tell her about
being a kid on a North Dakota farm and going to the
library to get books with pictures of beautiful
buildings. "The taller the better, Winifred," he'd
joke. "When someone built a three-story house in our town,
folks drove twenty miles just to get a look at it."
Other times he would encourage her to talk, and she found
herself gossiping with him about people in the
construction industry. Then the next morning she would
wonder if perhaps she had said too much, her
loquaciousness enhanced by the wine Adam kept pouring. But
she never really worried; she trusted Adam -- they trusted
each other -- and Adam enjoyed her "insider" stories about
the building world, tales from her earlier days with
Walters and Arsdale.
"You mean that sanctimonious old bird was on the take when
those bids went out?" he'd exclaim, then reassure her when
she became flustered about talking so much. And then he'd
promise never, ever to say a word to anyone about what she
had told him. She also remembered the night he had said
accusingly, "Winifred, you can't fool me. There's someone
in your life." And she had told him, yes, even giving the
name. And that was when she really began to trust him. She
confided that she was taking care of herself.
The uniformed clerk at the lobby desk put down the
intercom telephone. "You can go right up, Ms. Johnson.
Mrs. Cauliff is expecting you."
Adam had asked her to pick up his briefcase and his navy
jacket on the way to the meeting today. Being Adam, he had
been apologetic about the request. "I left in a hell of a
rush this morning and forgot them," he explained. "I left
them on the bed in the guest room. The notes for the
meeting are in my briefcase, and I'll need the jacket if I
change my mind and decide to meet Nell at the Four
Seasons." Winifred could sense from his tone that he and
Nell must have had a serious misunderstanding, and hearing
it only bolstered her certainty that their marriage was
heading for the rocks.
As she rode up in the elevator, she thought about the
meeting scheduled for later in the day. She was happy that
the location for the meeting had been moved to the boat.
She loved going out on the water. It seemed romantic, even
when the purpose was strictly business.
There would be just five of them. In addition to herself,
the three associates in the Vandermeer Tower venture --
Adam, Sam Krause and Peter Lang -- would be attending. The
fifth was Jimmy Ryan, one of Sam's site foremen. Winifred
wasn't sure why he'd been invited except that Jimmy had
been pretty moody lately. Maybe they wanted to get to the
heart of the problem and sort it out.
She knew they all would be concerned about the story that
broke in today's newspapers, although she didn't feel any
concern herself. In fact, she was rather impatient about
the whole thing. The worst thing that ever happens in
these situations, even if they get the goods on you, is
you pay a fine, she told herself. You reach into your back
pocket, and the problem goes away.
The elevator opened right onto the apartment foyer, where
Nell was waiting for her.
Winifred saw the cordial smile of welcome on Nell's face
fade as soon as she stepped forward. "Is something wrong?"
she asked anxiously.
Dear God, Nell thought with sudden alarm, why is this
happening? But as she looked at Winifred, she could almost
hear the knowledge filtering through her being: Winifred's
journey on this plane is completed.
Copyright © 2000 by Mary Higgins Clark