The Lacey Confession (28 page)

Tucker Poesy was enjoying the day. The beach at the Caneel Bay resort was crowded, and she liked it that way. The sun was hot and the water was surprisingly warm. She hated long trips and she was only now getting her land legs back. The quickest way to St. John was to fly nonstop from London to New York, stay over a night and catch the early morning flight to St. Thomas. No one told her there would be a ferry. How else could you go from St. Thomas to St. John? She would find it herself. By the time she arrived on the smaller of the two islands, it was Friday afternoon. Devereaux told her to look for Sherman on Monday. She was determined to get a suntan and catch up on her sleep over the weekend.

Devereaux called her two days ago. Walter Sherman was going to show up at home, on St. John, he told her. Harry Levine would not be with him. He was unsure if Sherman would bring the document with him to St. John. Devereaux figured Sherman's plan was to flush out the competitors, setting up shop for bids. He did not tell The Bambino about Abby O'Malley. He did say potential buyers would appear within days.

“Get there,” he ordered her.

“Do you want him dead?” she asked.

“No, no,” he chuckled. “Don't even try. I don't want you dead either.”

“Yeah,” she said, “I read that stuff from Vietnam. Used to be a bit of a nutcase, don't you think? I doubt he's still the same man. Not at his age.”

“Hardly,” said Devereaux, a man with the keenest sense of the evil one man can do to another. “Had it been you, you would have done the same. And, watch out. He's not that old.”

Ike saw her first. She strolled leisurely and unaccompanied across the square on her way to Billy's. She had not gotten off the ferry. That's for sure, thought Ike. That boat was still at sea, on its way from St. Thomas. He knew immediately she was no ordinary bushwhacker. She had the look of money—big money. He couldn't say exactly how he knew it, what it was he got a glimpse of, but he knew it when he saw it. There was well off and there was wealthy. There was no mistaking her. Such women, he thought, particularly ones like her in her later middle age, did not travel alone. But she was.

Ike knew a few things. He was confident he hadn't lost much. Not up here, he told himself, tapping his noggin. “Old is in the body,” he said, more than once. As far as he was concerned, he was as clear headed and sharp as ever. Hell, it could have been 1940 as far as his mind was concerned. Ike was primed to judge this woman, coming his way, without any more information. If Walter could do it, why couldn't he? Walter was the kind of guy, Ike always figured, to make judgments about strangers right off the bat. Ike had watched him do that, more than once. No reason why he couldn't do it too. She's coming my way, he thought, with no idea in the world why. The old man was proud and certain. It thrilled him when she approached, stopped at his table and smiled.

“How do you do, sir,” she said, then quickly added, as she watched Ike struggling to stand, “Please, do not get up, not on my account.”

“Ike's the name and it's my pleasure to meet you Miss . . . ?”

“Abby,” she said, reaching out to shake the old man's hand. He smiled at her in a way she knew he'd been doing for a million years. All yellow teeth and friendly manner. For just an instant she pictured him, fifty or sixty years ago, offering the same toothy grin to a lovely island girl. Undoubtedly, he had more hair then. “I understand you can direct me to Walter Sherman.”

“If I had to guess,” Ike said, “in an instant, you know, not with any thought behind it—if I had to guess who you came to see, other than myself, of course, I'd have said Walter. Sure thing, I would have. He's right over there.” Ike didn't point, motion with his head, move his upper body in some way, or shift his eyes at all. It was understood he meant somewhere inside the bar. “And I'll bet he's expecting you too, even if he don't know you're coming. If you know what I mean.” With that, Ike kissed her hand and reached deep inside his pocket for a fresh cigarette. “Over there, at the end . . .”

“I know,” she said.

Ike was right, and he was wrong. Walter was expecting her. But he also knew she was coming. He spotted her making her way up the bar, toward him. The day was warm, yet she showed no signs of perspiration. Her hair was in place. She had no tan to speak of, not even a fresh redness, the sort of lobster look commonly seen on new arrivals. Most revealing was her style of dress. She was indeed comfortably dressed, but unlike every other woman in Billy's, Abby O'Malley did not wear shorts or jeans and she did not have on flip-flops or Nikes. Instead she wore a light blue summer dress, subtly festooned with small yellow flowers. She walked in heels, low ones, but heels nonetheless. Not work clothes, but still city clothes. She was there for business. When Abby was still ten or fifteen feet away, she smiled at Walter. Introductions were politely called for but he already knew they were unnecessary. Walter rose from his seat.

“Miss O'Malley. Good to meet you.” He held out his hand. She took it. Her hand was soft and smooth. Rich hands. Her handshake was firm, not too quick, yet she did not let it linger. Without further invitation, she sat on the barstool next to Walter.

“It's my pleasure to meet you, Mr. Sherman,” she said. “May I call you Walter? Do you mind?”

“No, not at all.”

“And please call me Abby.”

“All right, Abby. I'm glad you called.”

“Thank you for leaving your number with . . .”

“Sean?”

“Yes, with Sean. I hope he didn't give you any trouble. I apologize for that.”

“I understand,” said Walter. Abby then proceeded to make a little small talk. She asked about the bar, about Ike, and wondered how long Walter had lived on St. John. He thought she might have been just a tad nervous to start with, but she seemed to loosen up just fine after a while. Walter told her about Billy's, even the story about how it used to be Frogman's, and he gave her the big picture on Ike, his storied history. He said nothing about his stay on St. John.

“Tell me,” Walter finally said, “how long have you known?”

“Known? Known about Lacey?”

“Yes. About his confession.” He watched for signs of stress in her manner, in her eyes, in the lines around her mouth, a change in her respiration. Nothing.

“Since 1968,” she said.

Walter shook his head, nodded to indicate—what? she wondered. Was he surprised? Was he impressed with such a revelation? She couldn't tell. Almost forty years. He hadn't expected that. Billy approached. Abby watched the two men as their eyes met. The look on Billy's face asked if the lady was going to eat. This part of the place, the far end of the bar nearest the kitchen, appeared to be Walter's private domain.

“Hungry?” Walter asked. “What do you like to eat?”

“Fish?” she answered, with a question of her own.

“Fish,” said Billy. “Fish is the specialty of the house. Red snapper in my own tangy mustard sauce? Seared tuna with capers on a bed of Yukon mashed potatoes? Grilled mahi-mahi served with pineapple rice and coconut shrimp? Or maybe something a little more casual, for the time of day. Grouper fingers—fish and chips?”

“That's it,” she said. “Fish and chips and a bottle of beer.”

“Where you from?” Billy asked. It was clear to her he had only a professional's interest in the information.

“Boston.”

“Sam Adams,” said Billy. “Good enough?”

“Perfect,” she said. Billy looked to Walter. Years of silent signals between them told the bartender to bring his friend another Diet Coke and put the lady's order on his tab. Abby could not help but notice.

“That's a long time,” Walter said after Billy left. “How did you find out?”

She started with Chicago. She told Walter about graduating from law school there, about her one-year tenure at Farmers Mutual Insurance Company. She came to the notice of the Attorney General, she said. That's how she got to Washington. She put in a year on the Jimmy Hoffa Squad and then it happened—November 22, 1963. After that, all Robert Kennedy cared about was finding the one, or the ones, responsible for murdering his brother. Abby told Walter everything, unvarnished. It was really quite a treat talking to him. Walter Sherman was one person she could be sure—absolutely sure—would never breathe a word spoken between them. His own identity was so well shrouded, so carefully obscured, his history of discretion so solid. Many people, she thought, have told Walter Sherman things they would never want anyone to know. Famous and powerful people have actually told him the truth and benefited from the telling. She never considered doing otherwise.

She filled him in on her assignment to the Boston office of the Justice Department and later, when Bobby resigned from Johnson's cabinet, her job placement as an investment banking attorney. “I had only one client,” she said. “And I never handled any investments. My job was to find out who killed President Kennedy. To help Bobby.” She stopped there. Billy brought out her fish and chips, asked if they wanted any more to drink, smiled and left.

Walter asked, “What did you discover?”

“Frederick Lacey,” she said. “A private matter.”

“Got a little out of hand, wouldn't you say?” She didn't. Instead, she was silent. And while she didn't speak, Walter could see there was a lot she might have said. He saw movement in her eyes, a slight tightening in her temples, a blush in her cheeks. “Harry told me,” Walter assured her. “He told me why. He told me about Audrey Lacey.”

Abby reminded herself again, Walter Sherman was a free ride. For more than forty years she held it in, held it tight. She told no one, except Bobby. She never talked about her work, not with a single soul, not even her husband. Now, here she was, sitting in a bar in a dumpy little town on a tiny speck of an island in the American Virgin Islands. Here she was with a man who would not only listen but understand. In her life, Abby O'Malley,
nee Anna Rothstein
, had been nothing if not precise, specific, skilled in detail while also knowing how much was enough. For as long as she could remember, there had been few if any disparate facts she couldn't make sense of. When she had it all together, especially in the early days with Bobby, her analysis was either conclusive or illuminating in a manner that held promise for the future. With Bobby, she loved the give and take, the teamwork, the endless gaming. Back then, she was sure she worked best working with him. And when she had, when she knew it was Lacey, it had been Bobby who told his mother. Abby couldn't do it. He realized that and, besides, it was his job. No one else could tell her. She had lost two sons to the man. Only the third could tell a mother such a horror. Only Bobby. And soon, she would lose him too. Had she known that, she would have done anything—anything.

Then, with the Kennedy legend entrusted to Abby and Rose, both women agreed, Ted Kennedy should not know. When Rose died, the Kennedy flame was left to the care of a Jewish girl from Memphis. She was certain only four people ever learned the truth—she did, Bobby, Rose and Louis Devereaux—and a fifth, of course, if you included the killer himself, Frederick Lacey. When Bobby confronted him in London, Lacey said, quite clearly, that he had told no one. He had written it all down—his confession, his protection—but he never took anybody into his confidence. Neither Robert Kennedy nor Abby O'Malley doubted him.

And that was it, she told Walter. Since the death of Rose Kennedy, Abby and Devereaux were the only ones who knew the identity of the man who killed Joseph P. Kennedy Jr., President John F. Kennedy and Robert F. Kennedy. It never occurred to Abby that Devereaux would share that information with anyone, with another woman, no matter how close he was to her.