The Second Time Around

  “Yes. I went back to Caspien Hospital after I left Mrs. Whitman. The clerk remembered that Nick Spencer had come in but couldn’t help him. They had sent the only set of X rays to Caroline Summers.”

  “Then the sequence of events seems to indicate that the Summers woman wrote that letter to Spencer sometime in November, after which someone rushed to collect his father’s early records,” Don said.

  I could see that he was drawing triangles and wondered what a psychologist would make of that kind of doodling. I knew what I made of it: A third person in the Gen-stone office had taken that letter seriously and had either taken action on it or passed it along to someone else.

  “There’s more. Nick Spencer flew to Ohio, met Caroline Summers and her daughter, examined her and took the X rays that had been taken at Caspien Hospital, and went with her to the hospital in Ohio, where the diagnostician claimed he could see traces of sclerosis cells. The MRI report was gone. Someone using Caroline Summers’s name had picked it up the week after Thanksgiving. Nick asked Mrs. Summers not to talk about any of these revelations to anyone and said that he would get back in touch with her. Of course, he never did.”

  “He has a mole somewhere in his company, and a little over a month later his plane crashes.” Ken put his glasses back on, a sign that we were going to wrap up soon. “Now he’s spotted in Switzerland, and his lady friend is missing.”

  “No matter how you slice it, millions of dollars are also missing,” Don said.

  “Carley, you say you spoke to Dr. Broderick’s wife. Did you get any information from her?” Ken asked

  “I spoke to her for only a moment. She knew I’d been to his office last week, and I guess he gave her a favorable impression of me. I said there were a few facts I’d like to check with her for the story, and she agreed to talk to me once her husband was out of danger. By then I can only hope that he’ll be able to give some impression of what happened to him.”

  “Broderick’s accident, a plane crash, stolen records, stolen MRI report, a torched mansion, a missing secretary, a failed cancer vaccine, and a vaccine that may have cured multiple sclerosis thirteen years ago,” Don said as he got up. “To think this started out as a conman-on-the-run story.”

  “I can tell you this right now,” Ken said, “no shot of an old vaccine ever cured multiple sclerosis.”

  My phone rang, and I ran to answer it. It was Lynn. In view of the reports that Nick had been seen in Switzerland, coupled with the shocking news that he was involved with his secretary, she wanted my help in preparing a statement for the media. Both Charles Wallingford and Adrian Garner were urging her to make one. “Carley, even if the report about Nick doesn’t turn out to be true, the fact that he was romantically linked with his assistant will effectively separate me from his activities in people’s minds. They’ll see me as an innocent wife. That’s what we both want, isn’t it?”

  “We want the truth, Lynn,” I said, but I reluctantly agreed to meet her later for lunch at The Four Seasons.

  TWENTY-NINE

  The Four Seasons was, as always, serenely busy at one o’clock, the favored arrival time for at least half the lunch people. I recognized familiar faces, the kind who show up in the “Style” section of the Times as well as in the political and business pages.

  Julian and Alex, the co-owners, were both at the desk. I asked for Mrs. Spencer’s table, and Alex said, “Oh, the reservation is under the name of Mr. Garner. The others are all here. They’re seated in the Pool Room.”

  So this isn’t to be a stepsisters-huddling-to-salvage-a-reputation session, I thought as I followed the escort down the marble corridor to the dining room. I wondered why Lynn hadn’t told me that Wallingford and Garner were going to be at the luncheon. Maybe she thought that I would have backed out. Wrong, Lynn, I thought. I can’t wait to get a real look at them, especially at Wallingford. But I needed to resist my reporter’s instincts. I intended to be all ears and have very little to say.

  We reached the Pool Room, so-called because it has a large square pool in the center that is beautifully surrounded with trees that symbolize the season. This being spring, long, slender apple trees, with branches heavily laden with blossoms, were in evidence. It’s a lighthearted, pretty room, and I’ll bet as many high-powered deals are agreed on there with a shake of the hand as ever take place in boardrooms.

  The escort left me with the captain, and I followed him across the room to the table. Even from a distance I could see that Lynn looked beautiful. She was wearing a black suit with white linen collar and cuffs. I couldn’t see her feet, but the bandages were gone from her hands. On Sunday she had not been wearing jewelry, but today a wide gold wedding band was on the third finger of her left hand. As people were on their way to their own tables, they were stopping to greet her.

  Was she acting, or was I so clinically disposed to dislike her that I found myself scornful of the brave smile and the girlish shake of the head when a man whom I recognized as being the CEO of a brokerage firm reached for her hand? “It still hurts,” she explained to him as the captain pulled out the chair for me. I was glad that her head was turned away from me. It spared me the necessity of going through the motions of air-kissing her.

  Adrian Garner and Charles Wallingford made the usual gesture of pushing back their chairs and attempting to stand as I arrived at the table. I made the usual protest, and we settled in our seats at the same time.

  I must say both men were impressive. Wallingford was a genuinely handsome man, with the kind of refined features that happen when generations of bluebloods continue to mate. Aquiline nose, ice blue eyes, dark brown hair that was graying at the temples, a disciplined body and fine hands—he was the essence of the patrician. His dark gray suit with almost indiscernible narrow stripes looked like an Armani to me. The soft-red-and-gray-figured tie on a crisp white shirt completed the picture. I noticed several women looking at him appreciatively as they passed the table.

  Adrian Garner might have been roughly the same age as Wallingford, but the resemblance stopped there. He was shorter by a couple of inches, and, as I had noticed on Sunday, neither his body nor his face displayed any of the refinement so apparent in Wallingford. His complexion was ruddy, as though he spent a lot of time outdoors. Today he wore glasses over his deep-set brown eyes, and his gaze was penetrating. I felt when he looked at me that he was able to read my mind. There was an air of power around the man that transcended his rather generic tan sports jacket and brown slacks, which looked as though he might have ordered them from a catalog.

  He and Wallingford greeted me. They were drinking champagne, and at a nod from me, the waiter filled the glass at my place. Then I saw Garner shoot an irritated look at Lynn who was still talking with the brokerage guy. She must have sensed it because she wrapped up the conversation, turned to us, and acted thrilled to see me.

  “Carley, it was so good of you to come on such short notice. You can imagine the roller coaster I’m on.”

  “Yes, I can.”

  “Isn’t it a blessing that Adrian warned me about the statement I made on Sunday when we thought a piece of Nick’s shirt had been found? And now, after hearing that Nick may have been seen in Switzerland and that his assistant is missing, I just don’t know what to think.”

  “But that’s not what you’re going to say,” Wallingford said, his tone firm. He looked at me. “All of this is confidential,” he began. “We’ve been doing some investigating at the office. It was very clear to a number of the employees that Nicholas Spencer and Vivian Powers were emotionally involved. The feeling is that Vivian remained on the job these past weeks because she wanted to learn the progress of the investigation into the crash. The U.S. attorney’s people are checking, of course, but we’ve hired our own fact-finding agency as well. Obviously it would have been a great comfort to Spencer if the consensus held that he is dead. But once he was seen in Europe, the game was over. He is now established as a fugitive, and it must be assumed that the Powers wom
an is one as well. There was no need for her to wait any longer once it was known that he survived the crash, and, of course, if she had lingered, the authorities would have questioned her.”

  “The one good thing that woman has done for me is that people are no longer treating me as a pariah,” Lynn said. “At least now they believe that I was as taken in by Nick as all the rest of them. When I think—”

  “Ms. DeCarlo, when do you expect your story to be published?” Adrian Garner asked.

  I wondered if I was the only one at the table irritated at the high-handed way he interrupted Lynn. I was sure Garner made a habit of doing that.

  I deliberately gave him an “if this, if that” answer, hoping to irritate him in turn. “Mr. Garner, we sometimes deal with two opposing elements. One is the news aspect of a cover story, and of course Nicholas Spencer is big news. The other aspect is telling the story honestly and not having it become just a collection of the latest rumors. Do we have the full story of Nick Spencer yet? I don’t think so. In fact, every day I become convinced that we haven’t even scratched the surface of the story, so I can’t answer your question.”

  I could tell that I had managed to anger him, which pleased me no end. Adrian Nagel Garner may be a hugely successful business tycoon, but in my book that does not give him license to be rude.

  I could see that we were drawing our battle lines. “Miss DeCarlo—” he began.

  I interrupted him. “My friends call me Carley.” He’s not the only one who can interrupt people when they’re talking, I thought.

  “Carley, the four people at this table, as well as the investors and employees of Gen-stone, are all victims of Nicholas Spencer. Lynn tells me you invested twenty-five thousand dollars in the company yourself.”

  “Yes, I did.” I thought of everything that I had heard about Garner’s state-of-the-art mansion and decided to see if I could make him squirm. “It was the money I was saving for a down-payment on a co-op apartment, Mr. Garner. I had dreamed about it for years: a building with an elevator that worked, a bathroom where the nozzle on the shower worked, maybe even an older building with a fireplace. I’ve always been big on fireplaces.”

  I knew that Garner was a totally self-made man, but he wouldn’t take my bait and say something like “I know what it is to want a shower that works.” He ignored my humble dreams of a better place to live. “Everyone who invested in Gen-stone has a personal history, a personal plan that has been shattered,” he said smoothly. “My company went out on a limb by announcing plans to buy the distribution rights to the Gen-stone vaccine. We were not hurt financially because our commitment was contingent on FDA approval after the vaccine was tested. Nevertheless, my company has been seriously injured in the reservoir of good will that is an essential element in the future of any organization. People bought Gen-stone stock in part because of Garner Pharmaceutical’s rock-solid reputation. Guilt by association is a very real psychological factor in the business community, Carley.”

  He had almost called me Ms. DeCarlo but hesitated and said “Carley” instead. I don’t think I’ve ever heard a more contemptuous spitting out of my name, and I realized suddenly that Adrian Garner, for all his power and might, was afraid of me.

  No, I thought, that’s too strong. He respects the fact that I can help people understand that not only Lynn but also the Garner Pharmaceutical Company was a victim of Spencer’s colossal scam, the cancer vaccine.

  The three of them were looking at me, waiting for my response. I decided it was my turn to get a little information from them. I looked at Wallingford. “Do you personally know the stockholder who claims he saw Nick Spencer in Switzerland?”

  Garner raised his hand before Wallingford could answer. “Perhaps we should order now.”

  I realized the captain was standing to the side at our table. We accepted menus and made our selections. I absolutely love the crab cakes at The Four Seasons, and no matter how hard I look at the menu or listen to the specials, that dish and a green salad are almost inevitably my choice.

  Not many people order steak tartare in this day and age. Raw beef combined with raw eggs is not considered the best way to live to a ripe old age. It interested me, therefore, that steak tartare was Adrian Garner’s choice.

  “The necessaries,” as Casey puts it, out of the way, I repeated my question to Wallingford: “Do you know the stockholder who claims he saw Nick Spencer in Switzerland?”

  He shrugged. “Know him? I’ve always been interested in the semantics of saying you know somebody. To me ‘know’ means you really know about him, not just that you see him regularly at large gatherings such as stockholders’ meetings or charity cocktail parties. The stockholder’s name is Barry West. He’s in midmanagement in a department store and apparently has handled his own investments fairly well. He came to our meetings four or five times in the last eight years and always made it a point to talk to both Nick and me. Two years ago when Garner Pharmaceutical agreed to joint distribution of the vaccine after it was approved, Adrian put Lowell Drexel on our board to represent him. Barry West immediately attempted to ingratiate himself with Lowell.”

  Wallingford shot a glance at Adrian Garner. “I heard him ask Lowell if you were in need of a good, solid, management type, Adrian.”

  “If Lowell was smart, he said no,” Garner snapped.

  Adrian Garner certainly didn’t believe in taking his gracious pill in the morning, but to a certain extent I realized that I was overcoming my irritation at his abrupt manner. In the media business you hear so much bifurcation that someone who says things straight can be a refreshing change.

  “Be that as it may,” Wallingford said, “I do think that Barry West had the opportunity to see Nick often enough and up close enough that whoever he saw either was Nick or else looked a great deal like him.”

  It had been my first impression at Lynn’s apartment on Sunday that these men cordially disliked each other. War, however, makes strange bedfellows, and so does a failed company, I thought. But it was also clear to me that I was not here solely to help Lynn explain to the world that she was a helpless victim of her husband’s infidelity and larceny. It was important to all of them to get some sense of the way the cover story in Wall Street Weekly would turn out.

  “Mr. Wallingford,” I said.

  He raised his hand. I knew he was going to ask me to call him by his given name. He did. I did.

  “Charles, as you well know, I’m only writing the human interest element of the Gen-stone failure and Nick Spencer’s disappearance. I believe you’ve been speaking extensively with my colleague Don Carter?”

  “Yes. In cooperation with our auditors, we have given full access to our books to outside investigators.”

  “He stole all that money, yet he wouldn’t even go with me to look at a house in Darien that was a great bargain,” Lynn said. “I wanted so much to make our marriage work, and he couldn’t understand that I hated living in another woman’s house.”

  In fairness I had to agree that she had a point. I wouldn’t want to live in another woman’s house if I married. Then for the quickest of moments I realized that if Casey and I ended up together, we wouldn’t have that problem.

  “Your associate Dr. Page has been given free access to our laboratory and to the results of our experiments,” Wallingford continued. “Unfortunately for us, there were some promising results early on. This is not uncommon in the search for a drug or vaccine to prevent or slow down the growth of cancer cells. Too often, hopes have been dashed and companies gone under because the early research simply did not prove out. That’s what happened at Gen-stone. Why would he steal so much money? We’ll never know why he started to steal it. When he knew the vaccine didn’t work and the stock would start to tumble, there was no way he could cover his theft, and that was probably when he decided to disappear.”

  Journalists are taught in Journalism 101 to ask five basic questions: Who? What? Why? Where? When?

  I chose the middle one. “
Why?” I asked. “Why would he do that?”

  “Initially perhaps to buy more time to try and prove the vaccine would work,” Wallingford said. “Then, when he knew it could not work and that he’d been falsifying data, I think he decided he had only one choice: to steal enough money to live on for the rest of his life and then to run away. Federal prison is not the country club that the media depict it to be.”

  It crossed my mind to wonder if anyone had ever seriously thought of federal prison as a country club. What Wallingford and Garner were saying was that in essence I had proven myself to be true blue by standing by Lynn. Now we could agree on the best way to summarize her innocence, and then I could help rebuild their credibility through the manner in which I submitted my part of the research for the cover story.

  It was time to once again say what I thought I’d been saying right along: “I have to repeat something that I hope you realize,” I told them.

  Our salads were being served, and I waited to finish my statement. The waiter offered ground pepper. Only Adrian Garner and I accepted. Once the waiter was gone, I told them that I would write the story as I saw it, but in the interest of writing it well and of getting everything right, I would need to schedule in-depth interviews with both Charles Wallingford and Mr. Garner, who I suddenly realized had not encouraged me to call him Adrian.

  They both agreed. Reluctantly? Probably, but that was too hard to call.

  Then with business somewhat out of the way, Lynn held her hands out to me, reaching across the table. I was forced to meet the gesture by touching the tips of my fingers to hers.

  “Carley, you’ve been so good to me,” she said with a deep sigh. “I’m so glad you agree that while I might have burned hands, they’re also clean hands.”

  The famous words of Pontius Pilate raced through my mind: “I wash my hands of the blood of this innocent man.”

  But Nick Spencer, I thought, no matter how pure his motives may have been originally, was certainly guilty of theft and deception, wasn’t he?