The Second Time Around

  “I’ll let you go, Mrs. Rider,” I said. “And I promise you that this has been off the record. Give me one more impression. You now believe Vivian stayed in the office to cover traces of the money. Right after the plane crash, did she seem genuinely grieved?”

  “We all were heartsick and couldn’t believe it had happened. Like a bunch of dopes, we were all standing around here crying and saying how wonderful Nick Spencer was, and we were all kind of looking at her because we suspected that they had become lovers. She didn’t say a thing. She just got up and went home. Guess she didn’t think she could put on a convincing act for our benefit.”

  Abruptly, the woman turned away from me. “What’s the use?” she snapped. “Talk about a den of thieves.” She pointed to the receptionist. “Betty can show you around.”

  As it turned out, I wasn’t interested in talking to the people who would be made available to me. It was immediately clear that none of them held a position where they would know anything about the letter Caroline Summers wrote to Nicholas Spencer last November. I asked the receptionist about the laboratory. “Could that be shut down overnight like everything else?”

  “Oh, no. Dr. Celtavini and Dr. Kendall and their assistants will be here for a while.”

  “Are Dr. Celtavini and Dr. Kendall here today?” I asked.

  “Dr. Kendall is.” She looked uncertain. Dr. Kendall had obviously not been on her list of people to be interviewed, but Betty did call her.

  * * *

  “Miss DeCarlo, do you have any idea how difficult it is to get a new drug approved?” Dr. Kendall asked. “In fact, only one in fifty thousand chemical compounds discovered by scientists make it to the public market. The search for a cancer cure has been unrelenting, going on for decades. When Nicholas Spencer started this company, Dr. Celtavini was extremely interested and enthusiastic about the results reported in Dr. Spencer’s files, and he gave up his position with one of the most prestigious research laboratories in the country to join Nick Spencer—as did I, I might add.”

  We were in her office above the laboratory. When I met Dr. Kendall last week, I had thought of her as not being particularly attractive, but now when she looked directly at me, I realized that there was a compelling, almost smoldering fire that had not then been apparent to me. I had noticed her determined chin, but her dark blunt-cut hair had been tucked behind her ears, and I had not taken in the curious shade of her grayish green eyes. Last week I had the sense that she was a fiercely intelligent woman. Now I realized she was also a very attractive one.

  “Were you with a laboratory or a pharmaceutical house, Doctor?” I asked.

  “I was with Hartness Research Center.”

  I was impressed. It doesn’t get higher quality than Hartness. I wondered why she had given up that job to go with a new company. She herself had just said that only one in fifty thousand new drugs makes it to the market.

  She answered my unasked question: “Nicholas Spencer was a most persuasive salesman in recruiting personnel, as well as money.”

  “How long have you been here?”

  “It’s a little over two years.”

  It had been a long day. I thanked Dr. Kendall for seeing me and left. On the way out I stopped to thank Betty and wish her well. Then I asked her if she kept in touch with any of the girls who had been in the keyboarding pool. “Pat lives near me,” she said. “She left a year ago. Edna and Charlotte, I wasn’t close to. But if you wanted to get in touch with Laura, just ask Dr. Kendall. Laura’s her niece.”

  THIRTY-SIX

  It wasn’t a question of if the cops would come back. It was when they’d come back that bothered Ned. He thought about it all day. His rifle was out of the way, but if they had a search warrant for his van, they’d probably find some of Peg’s DNA there. She had bled a little when her head hit the dashboard.

  Then they’d keep searching until they found the rifle. Mrs. Morgan would tell them that she knew he went to the grave a lot. Eventually they’d figure it out.

  At four o’clock he decided not to wait any longer.

  It was deserted in the cemetery. He wondered if Annie was lonesome for him the way he was for her. The ground was still so muddy that it was easy to dig up the rifle and the box of ammunition. Then he sat on the grave for a few minutes. He didn’t care that his clothes were getting wet and dirty. Just being there made him feel close to Annie.

  There were still some things—some people—he had to take care of, but once he’d done what he had to do, then the next time he came here he wouldn’t leave. For just a minute Ned was tempted to do it now. He knew how it was done. Take off his shoes. Put the rifle barrel in his mouth and hook the trigger with his toe.

  He started to laugh, remembering how he’d done that once when the rifle wasn’t loaded, just to tease Annie. She had screamed and burst into tears, and then had run over to him and pulled his hair. It hadn’t hurt. He’d laughed at first, but then he’d felt sorry because she was so upset. Annie loved him. She was the only one who had ever loved him.

  Ned got up slowly. His clothes were so dirty again that he knew wherever he went people would stare at him. So he went back to the van, wrapped the rifle in the blanket, and drove back to the apartment.

  Mrs. Morgan would be first.

  He showered and shaved and brushed his hair. Then he took his dark blue suit from the closet and laid it on the bed. Annie had bought it for him on his birthday, four years ago. He’d worn it only a couple of times. He hated to dress up like that. But now he put it on, along with a shirt and tie. He was doing it for her.

  He went to the dresser where everything was just the way Annie had left it. The box with the pearls he had given her for Christmas was in the top drawer. Annie had loved them. She said he shouldn’t have spent $100 for them, but she loved them. He picked up the box.

  He could hear Mrs. Morgan walking around upstairs. She always complained that he was messy. She had complained to Annie about all the stuff in his part of the garage. She’d complained about the way he emptied the garbage, saying that he didn’t tie the sacks but just threw them into the big pails at the side of the house. She used to get Annie so upset, and now that Annie was dead, she wanted to throw him out.

  Ned loaded his rifle and walked up the stairs. He knocked on the door.

  Mrs. Morgan opened it, but she kept the chain on. He knew she was afraid of him. But when she saw him, she smiled and said, “Why, Ned, you look so nice. Do you feel better?”

  “Yes, I do. And I’m going to feel even better in a minute.”

  He kept the rifle at his side so that she couldn’t see it with the door open only a few inches.

  “I’m starting to sort things out in the apartment. Annie liked you very much, and I want you to have her pearls. Can I come in and give them to you?”

  He could see the suspicious look in Mrs. Morgan’s eyes, and could tell she was nervous from the way she bit her lip. But then he heard the chain slide.

  Ned quickly shoved the door open and pushed her back. She stumbled and fell. As he aimed the rifle, he saw the look he wanted on her face—the look that said she knew she was going to die, the look he’d seen on Annie’s face when he ran out to the car after the truck slammed into it.

  He was only sorry that Mrs. Morgan closed her eyes before he shot her.

  They wouldn’t find her until sometime tomorrow, maybe even the day after. That would give him time to get the others.

  He found Mrs. Morgan’s pocketbook and took her car keys and wallet. There was $126 in it. “Thank you, Mrs. Morgan,” he said looking down at her. “Now your son can have the whole house.”

  He felt calm and at peace. In his head he could hear a voice telling him what to do: Ned, take your van and park it somewhere so they won’t find it for a while. Then take Mrs. Morgan’s car, her nice, clean, black Toyota that nobody will notice.

  * * *

  An hour later he was driving the Toyota down the block. He had parked the van in the hospital p
arking lot, where no one would think anything of it. People came and went there twenty-four/seven. Then he’d walked back, looked up at the second floor of the house, and got a good feeling thinking about Mrs. Morgan. At the corner, he stopped for the light. In the rearview mirror he saw a car slow down in front of the house, and then he watched as the detectives got out. On their way to talk to him again, Ned figured. Or to arrest him.

  Too late, Ned thought, as the light turned green and he headed the car north. Everything he was doing, he was doing for Annie. In her memory he wanted to visit the ruin of the mansion that had started him dreaming of giving her a home like that. In the end, the dream became a nightmare that had taken her life, so he had taken the mansion’s life. As he drove, it felt as if she were sitting with him now. “See, Annie,” he would say when he stopped in front of the ruined mansion. “See, I got even with them. Your house is gone. Their house is gone.”

  Then he would drive to Greenwood Lake, where he and Annie would say good-bye to the Harniks and Mrs. Schafley.

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  I had the radio on as I was driving home from Pleasantville, but I wasn’t hearing a word of what was being said. I could not avoid the feeling that my expected presence in the Gen-stone office today contributed to the decision to abruptly close the company’s doors. I also had a feeling that no matter what other business Lowell Drexel had to discuss with Charles Wallingford, he was also there to get a good look at me.

  It was sheer good fortune that Betty, the receptionist, had mentioned by chance that one of the women who sorted the mail and sent out the form letters was Dr. Kendall’s niece, Laura. If she had been the one assigned to respond to Caroline Summers’s letter, would she have thought it interesting enough to tell Dr. Kendall about it? I wondered.

  But even if she had, why wouldn’t she have answered the letter? According to company policy, all letters were to receive a response.

  Vivian had said that after he learned his father’s records had been taken, Nick Spencer stopped putting his appointments on the calendar. If he and Vivian were as close as the people in the office seemed to think, I wonder why he had not told her the reason for his concerns.

  Didn’t he trust her?

  That he might not was a new, interesting possibility.

  Or was he protecting her by his silence?

  “Vivian Powers has been . . .”

  I realized suddenly that I was not only thinking her name, I was hearing it on the radio. With a snap of my finger I turned up the volume, and then listened with growing dismay to the news report. Vivian had been found, still alive but unconscious, in her neighbor’s car. The car was parked off the road in a wooded area only a mile from her home in Briarcliff Manor. It was believed that she had attempted suicide, this assumption based on the fact that there was an empty bottle of pills found on the seat beside her.

  My God, I thought. She disappeared sometime between Saturday evening and Sunday morning. Could she have been in the car all this time? I was almost crossing the county line as I headed into the city. I debated for a split second, then made the next possible turn to go back to Westchester.

  Forty-five minutes later I was sitting with Vivian’s father in the waiting room outside the intensive care unit of Briarcliff Manor Hospital. He was crying, both from relief and fear. “Carley,” he said, “she’s slipping in and out of consciousness, but she seems not to remember anything. They asked her how old she is, and she said sixteen. She thinks she’s sixteen years old. What has she done to herself?”

  Or what has someone else done to her? I thought as I closed my hand over his. I tried to come up with some words to comfort him. “She’s alive,” I said. “It’s a miracle that after five days in the car she’s still alive.”

  Detective Shapiro was at the door of the waiting room. “We’ve been talking with the doctors, Mr. Desmond. There was no way your daughter was in that car for five days. We know that as recently as two days ago she was dialing Nick Spencer’s cell phone number. Do you think you can get her to come clean with us?”

  THIRTY-EIGHT

  I stayed with Allan Desmond for four hours, until his daughter Jane, who flew down from Boston, arrived at the hospital. She was a year or two older than Vivian, and looked so much like her that I felt a wrench of surprise when she came into the waiting room.

  They both insisted I be with them when Jane spoke—or tried to speak—to Vivian. “You heard what the police said,” Allan Desmond said. “You’re a journalist, Carley. Make your own decision.”

  I stood with him at the foot of the bed as Jane bent over Vivian and kissed her forehead. “Hey, Viv, what do you think you’re doing? We’ve been worried about you.”

  An IV was dripping fluid into Vivian’s arm. Her heartbeat and blood pressure were being recorded on a monitor over her bed. She was chalk white, and her dark hair provided a stark contrast to her complexion and the hospital bedding. When she opened them, even though they were cloudy, I noticed again her soft brown eyes.

  “Jane?” The timbre of her voice was different.

  “I’m here, Viv.”

  Vivian looked around then focused on her father. A puzzled expression came over her face. “Why is Daddy crying?”

  She sounds so young, I thought.

  “Don’t cry, Daddy,” Vivian said as her eyes began to close.

  “Viv, do you know what happened to you?” Jane Desmond was running her finger along her sister’s face, trying to keep her awake.

  “Happened to me?” Vivian was clearly trying to focus. Again, a look of confusion came over her face. “Nothing happened to me. I just got home from school.”

  When I left a few minutes later, Jane Desmond and her father walked with me to the elevator. “Do the police have the nerve to think she’s faking this?” Jane asked indignantly.

  “If they do, they’re wrong. She’s not faking it,” I said grimly.

  * * *

  It was nine o’clock when I finally opened the door of my apartment. Casey had left messages on my answering machine at four, six, and eight o’clock. They were all the same. “Call me no matter what time you get in, Carley. It’s very important.”

  He was home. “I just got in,” I said by way of apology. “Why didn’t you call me on my cell phone?”

  “I did. A couple of times.”

  I had obeyed the sign in the hospital to turn it off and then had forgotten to turn it on again and check for messages.

  “I gave Vince your message about talking to Nick’s in-laws. I must have made a convincing case—either that or hearing about Vivian Powers has shaken them up. They want to talk to you, anytime, at your convenience. I assume you’ve heard about Vivian Powers, Carley.”

  I told him about being at the hospital. “Casey, I could have learned so much more from her,” I said. I didn’t realize that I was close to tears until I heard them in my voice. “I think she wanted to talk to me, but she was afraid to trust me. Then she decided she did trust me. She left that message. How long was she hiding in her neighbor’s house? Or did somebody see her go there?”

  I was talking so fast that I was tripping over my own words. “Why didn’t she use her neighbor’s phone to ask for help? Did she ever make it to the car, or did somebody drive her away in it? Casey, I think she was scared. Wherever she was, she kept trying to call Nick Spencer on his cell phone. Did she believe those reports that he was seen in Switzerland? The other day when I spoke with her, I swear she believed he was dead. She couldn’t have been in that car for five days. Why didn’t I help her? At the time, I knew something was terribly wrong.”

  Casey interrupted me. “Hold it, hold it,” he said. “You’re rambling. I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”

  It actually took him twenty-three minutes. When I opened the door, he put his arms around me, and for the moment at least, even the terrible burden of having somehow failed Vivian Powers was lifted from my shoulders.

  I think that was the moment when I stopped trying to fight bei
ng in love with Casey and trusted that maybe he was falling in love with me, too. After all, the greatest proof of love is to be there for someone when she needs you most, isn’t it?

  THIRTY-NINE

  “This is their pool, Annie,” Ned said. “It’s covered now, but when I worked here last summer for that landscaper, it was open. There were tables out on those terraces. The gardens were really pretty. That’s why I wanted you to have the same thing.”

  Annie smiled at him. She was starting to understand that he hadn’t meant to hurt her by selling her house.

  Ned looked around. It was getting dark. He hadn’t intended to come onto the property, but he remembered the code to open the service gate, having watched the landscaper use it last summer. That was how he had gotten in when he torched the house. The gate was way over on the left side of the property, past the English garden. Rich people didn’t want to look at the help. They didn’t want their ratty cars or trucks cluttering up their driveways.

  “That’s why they have a buffer zone, Annie,” Ned explained. “They plant trees just to make sure they don’t have to see us come in or out. Serves them right that we can turn the tables on them. We can come in and out, and they don’t even know it.”

  When he was here, he had worked on the lawn, mulched the plants, and put flowers in around the pool. As a result, he knew every inch of this place.

  He explained it all to Annie when he drove in. “You see, we had to use this gate when I worked here. See, the sign says SERVICE ENTRANCE. For most deliveries or for people coming to do a job, the housekeeper would have to buzz to let them in but the landscaper—that lousy guy I got in trouble for punching out—had the code. Every day we parked outside this garage. They don’t use this one for anything except storing lawn furniture and that kind of stuff. Guess they won’t be using it this year. Nobody wants to sit around a place like this, with the house gone and everything still a mess.