Edna Barry’s cheeks were flushed. Fran could see the woman was on the verge of tears. Is she afraid because she thinks she may have been careless and left the house unlocked? she wondered.
“Thank you for your help, Mrs. Barry, and your hospitality,” Fran said. “I’ve taken enough of your time for now, but I may want to ask you a few more questions later, and possibly we’ll ask you to be a guest on the program.”
“I don’t want to be a guest on the program.”
“Of course. As you wish.” Fran turned off the recorder and got up to leave. At the door she asked a final question: “Mrs. Barry, let’s just assume the possibility that there was someone else in the house the night Dr. Lasch died. Do you know if the locks on any of the doors were ever changed?”
“Not to my knowledge.”
“I’m going to suggest to Molly that they should be changed. Otherwise she might be in danger from an intruder. Don’t you agree?”
Now the color drained from Edna Barry’s face. “Miss Simmons,” she said, “if you’d seen what I saw when I went upstairs—Molly lying in that bed, covered with crusted blood—you’d know that no intruder came into the house that night. Stop trying to make trouble for innocent people.”
“What innocent people am I trying to make trouble for, Mrs. Barry?” Fran demanded. “I thought I was trying to help a young woman, someone you’ve known for years and say you care for, to perhaps prove herself innocent of this crime!”
Mrs. Barry said nothing, her lips a grim, straight line as she opened the door for Fran to leave. “We’ll be talking again, Mrs. Barry,” Fran said, unsmiling. “I have a feeling I still have a lot of questions for you that need to be answered.”
29
As Molly suspected, when her phone rang on Saturday afternoon, it was Jenna calling.
“I was just talking to Phil Matthews,” Jenna said. “I understand you’re cooking dinner for him. I approve.”
“Good Lord, don’t even think in those terms,” Molly protested. “I would have had him pounding on the door if I hadn’t let him come over, and since I’m not ready to go to a restaurant, it just seemed like the logical thing to do.”
“Well, we decided that, invited or not, we’re coming over for a drink. Cal is anxious to see you.”
“You’re not invited,” Molly said, “but come over around seven.”
“Moll,” Jenna said, then hesitated.
“Say it. It’s okay.”
“Oh, it’s nothing dramatic, my friend. It’s just that you sound like yourself again—and I love it.”
Who is “myself”? Molly wondered. “Nothing like windows without bars and a satin quilt on the bed,” she commented. “They do wonders for the soul.”
“Wait till I get you in to Manhattan for the makeover. What are you up to today?” Molly hesitated, then decided that she was not ready to share, even with Jenna, the fact that she was going through Gary’s daily reminder and appointment books, searching day by day for clues. She settled instead for a half-truth. “As long as I’m a hostess, however unwelcome that role, I’m getting a few things started in the kitchen. It’s been a long time since I’ve done anything like that.”
That much was true. The rest of the truth was that Gary’s date books going back several years before his death were stacked on the kitchen table. Working backwards, starting with the date of his death, she had been going through them page by page, line by line.
Molly remembered that Gary’s schedule always had been crowded, and that he was always jotting down reminders to himself. She already had come across several such notations, entries like “5 P.M. Call Molly at club.”
She remembered with a pang that there were times he’d phone her and ask, “Why is it in my book that I’m supposed to call you now?”
At 5:30, just before she set the table for that night’s dinner, Molly found the notation that she wanted. It was a phone number that showed up several times in Gary’s last reminder diary. She checked with the information operator and learned that the area code for the number given was in Buffalo.
She dialed the number, and when a woman answered, Molly asked if Annamarie was there.
“Speaking,” Annamarie Scalli said quietly.
30
When she left Edna Barry’s house, Fran embarked on a pilgrimage through Greenwich, a further trip down memory lane. This time she drove to the Stationhouse Pub, with the idea of having lunch there. We used to come here for a quick dinner before going to the movies, she remembered nostalgically.
Turkey on rye was what Fran ordered. It used to be her mother’s favorite. She looked about the dining room. It was unlikely that her mother ever would set foot in Greenwich again. The memories for her were just too painful. The joke that last summer had been that instead of a new library, the town was stuck with a different lending institution: “Simmons Trust.” Some joke, she thought bitterly.
She had considered the possibility of driving past the house where they’d lived for those four years but realized she wasn’t up to it. Not today, Fran thought, as she signaled for her check.
When she got back to the city and her apartment building, Fran saw that Philip Matthews had kept his word. A bulky package was waiting for her at the lobby desk. She opened it to find that it was the entire transcript of Molly Lasch’s trial.
She looked at it longingly, anxious to get started, but she knew it would have to wait. Errands needed to be run first, she reminded herself. She simply had to do some food shopping, then get to the dry cleaner, then try to hit Bloomingdale’s for hosiery and cosmetics.
It was 4:30 when she was finally able to put everything else aside and make a cup of tea, then settle into her deep club chair, prop her feet on the ottoman, and open the transcript.
The text did not make for pretty reading. The prosecutor presented a strong and chilling argument: Is there evidence of a struggle? No. . . . gaping wound in the head of Dr. Gary Lasch . . . skull caved in. . . . He was bludgeoned while sitting at his desk, his back to his assailant . . . totally defenseless. . . . The evidence will show that Molly Lasch’s fingerprints, clear and bloody, were on that sculpture, that Gary Lasch’s blood was on her face and hands and clothing . . . that there was no sign of forced entry . . . .
No evidence of forced entry, Fran thought. Obviously the police did check the doors. They don’t say anything about them being unlocked, though. Did Philip Matthews follow up on that? she wondered. She highlighted that section of testimony with a yellow marker.
Molly Lasch did not kill her husband, Gary Lasch. I’m beginning to believe that could be true, Fran thought. Now let’s take it one step further. Let’s assume that someone else killed Gary Lasch and was lucky enough that when Molly came in and found her husband, she was so traumatized that inadvertently she did everything possible to incriminate herself. She handled the murder weapon that killed her husband, touched his face and head, splattered herself with his blood.
Splattered herself with his blood, Fran thought. If Gary Lasch was still alive when Molly found him, is it possible that he was able to say anything to her? If there was someone in the house, then Molly could have arrived home moments after Gary was attacked.
Did Molly come home, go to the study, find her husband mortally injured but still alive? Fran asked herself. It would explain why she would have been touching him, why her mouth and face were covered with blood. Did she try to resuscitate him when she found him?
Or had she tried to resuscitate him only after she realized what she had done to him?
If we go with the idea that she’s innocent, then somebody right now is terribly, terribly nervous, Fran realized.
A certainty that Molly Lasch was in grave danger washed over Fran. If Gary Lasch had been alone in a house—a house that the evidence showed had been locked—and had not heard his assailant come into the study, as appearances would indicate, then the same thing could happen to Molly, Fran thought.
She reached for the phone. She’ll thi
nk I’m crazy, but I’m going to call her.
Molly’s greeting sounded hurried. “Fran. It seems to be reunion time,” she explained. “Philip Matthews is coming to dinner, and Jenna and Cal insisted on stopping by for a cocktail. And I just got a call from Peter Black. He was not happy when I told him earlier that you wanted to see him, but he sounded quite civil just now. He’s stopping over too.”
“Then I won’t keep you,” Fran said, “but I had a quick thought. I gathered from Mrs. Barry that the doors have the same locks they’ve had since you bought the house?”
“That’s right.”
“Look, I think it would be a great idea to change them.”
“I hadn’t thought about it.”
“How many people have a set of keys?”
“It’s not a set. Just one key, really. The front door and the kitchen door have the same lock. The patio and basement doors are always bolted from the inside. There were only four keys. Gary’s. Mine. Mrs. Barry’s. And the one we hide in the garden.”
“Who knows about the one in the garden?”
“I don’t think anyone knows. It was just for emergencies and never used. Gary never forgot his keys and neither did I. Mrs. Barry never forgets anything. Fran, you’re going to have to forgive me, but I have to go.”
“Molly, call a locksmith on Monday. Please.”
“Fran, I’m not in danger, unless . . .”
“Unless you had the hard luck to arrive on a murder scene and become traumatized, and now someone could be afraid of what you’ll remember.”
Fran heard Molly’s gasp. Then, with a catch in her voice, Molly said, “That’s the first time in six years I’ve heard anyone suggest that I might be innocent.”
“So you see why I want you to change your locks? Let’s plan to get together on Monday.”
“Yes, let’s do. I may have some very interesting news for you,” Molly said.
Now what did she mean by that? Fran wondered as she replaced the receiver.
31
Tim Mason had planned to get in one last weekend of skiing at Stowe in Vermont, but a call from his cousin Michael, who still lived in Greenwich, changed his plans. The mother of Billy Gallo, an old school friend of both men, had died of a heart attack, and Michael thought Tim might want to stop in at the wake.
That was why on Saturday evening Tim was on the Merritt Parkway, driving to southern Connecticut and thinking of the high school years when he and Billy Gallo had played together in the band. Billy was a real musician even then, Tim reflected. He remembered how they had tried to start their own group when they were seniors and how the group always practiced at Billy’s house.
Mrs. Gallo, a warm, hospitable woman, was always urging them to stay for dinner, and it never took much persuasion. Her kitchen tantalized them with aromas of baking bread, garlic, and simmering tomato sauce. Tim remembered how Mr. Gallo would come home from work and go straight to the kitchen, as though he were afraid his wife wouldn’t be there. The minute he spotted her, a big smile would come over his face and he’d say, “Josie, you’re opening cans again.”
Somewhat wistfully, Tim thought of his own parents and of the years before they divorced, when he had been glad to escape the escalating coolness between them.
Mr. Gallo never failed to deliver that corny line, he thought, and Mrs. Gallo would always laugh as though it were the first time she had heard it. They clearly were crazy about each other. Mr. Gallo, though, was never close to Billy. He thought Billy was wasting his time trying to be a musician.
As Tim drove and thought of those earlier days, he remembered another funeral he had gone to in Greenwich. He’d been out of school then, already working as a reporter.
He thought of Fran Simmons, how grief stricken she had been. In church her muffled sobs had been audible throughout the entire Mass. Then, as the casket was being lifted into the hearse, he had felt like a voyeur, jotting notes for his story while the cameraman took flash pictures.
Fourteen years had changed Fran Simmons. It wasn’t just that she had grown up. There was a cool professionalism about her, like an invisible armor; he’d sensed it when they met in Gus’s office. Tim was embarrassed to realize that when they were introduced he had been thinking about her father and how he had been a crook. Why did he have the uncomfortable feeling that he owed her an apology for that?
He was so deep in thought that he was at the North Street exit before he realized it, and he almost missed the turnoff. Three minutes later he was in the funeral home.
The place was filled with friends of the Gallo family. Tim saw a host of familiar faces, people he had lost touch with, a number of whom came up to him when he was waiting on line to speak to Mr. Gallo and Billy. Most of them made flattering comments about his reporting, but fast on the heels of those comments came references to Fran Simmons, because she was now on the program with him.
“That is the Fran Simmons whose father cleaned out the library fund, isn’t it?” Mrs. Gallo’s sister asked.
“My aunt thinks she saw her in the coffee shop at Lasch Hospital,” someone else commented. “What on earth would she be doing there?”
That question was asked of Tim just as he came face to face with Billy Gallo, who obviously had overheard. His eyes swollen from crying, he shook Tim’s hand. “If Fran Simmons is investigating something at the hospital, tell her to find out why patients are being allowed to die when they don’t have to,” he said bitterly.
Tony Gallo touched his son’s sleeve. “Billy, Billy, it was God’s will.”
“No, Pop, it wasn’t. A lot of people who are building up to heart attacks can be saved.” Billy’s voice, agitated and tense, rose in volume. He pointed to his mother’s casket. “Mom shouldn’t be in there, not for another twenty years. The doctors at Lasch didn’t care—they just let her die.” He was practically sobbing now. “Tim, you and Fran Simmons and all the reporters on your television show have got to look into this. You’ve got to find out why they waited so long, why she wasn’t sent to a specialist in time.”
With a strangled, choking groan, Billy Gallo covered his face with his hands and surrendered once more to the tears he had been fighting. Tim braced him with firm hands on both arms, holding him until Billy’s sobs quieted and, in a voice calm and sad, he finally managed to ask, “Tim, tell the truth. Did you ever taste a better pasta sauce than my mother made?”
32
I don’t know how I let this happen, Molly thought as she placed a tray of cheese and crackers on the table in the family room. Seeing Cal and Peter Black here, together, upset her in ways she had not anticipated. The serenity, the comfort she had found in being in her own house was suddenly gone. It was as though her privacy had been violated. Seeing these two men in here brought back the many times when they would meet with Gary in his study. The three of them would spend hours in conference there—the other Remington Health Management board members were only rubber stamps.
These past few days the house had felt different from the way she remembered it. It was as though the five and a half years she had been in prison had changed her perception of her life as she had known it.
Before Gary died, I believed I was happy, Molly thought. I believed that the gnawing restlessness I felt came from my frustration at not having a baby.
Now she could feel the old, familiar heaviness of spirit closing in around her. She could tell Jenna sensed her change of mood and was concerned. Jenna had trailed her out to the kitchen, had insisted on cutting the cheese into squares, had arranged the crackers neatly on the plate, had folded the napkins just so.
After being so curt on the phone, Peter Black seemed to be going out of his way tonight to be agreeable. When he came in, he had kissed her on the cheek and squeezed her hand. His message was clear: That terrible tragedy is behind us.
Is it? she wondered. Can we make something like that—the murder, the years in prison—just disappear, as though they had never happened? I don’t think so, she decided as sh
e looked at these old friends—if indeed that’s what they were—gathered together in this room.
She looked at Peter Black—he seemed tremendously uncomfortable. Why had he insisted on coming here?
Philip Matthews seemed to be the only one at ease. He had been the first to arrive, getting there promptly at seven, an amaryllis plant held in the crook of his arm. “I know you’re looking forward to gardening,” he’d said. “Maybe you’ll find a corner for an amaryllis.”
The huge, pale red blossoms were exquisite. “Be careful,” she warned him. “The amaryllis is also called a belladonna lily, and belladonna is a poison.”
The lightness she had felt then was gone. Now Molly felt that even the air was poisoned. Cal Whitehall and Peter Black were not here as a welcome-home committee—that was clear from the outset. They had a different agenda. That would also explain Jenna’s nervousness, she decided. She was the one who had forced the meeting.
Molly wanted to tell Jenna that it was all right. She understood that Cal was a steamroller, that if he’d made up his mind to come, Jenna wouldn’t have been able to stop him.
The reason behind their visit soon became apparent. It was Cal who first broached the subject. “Molly, yesterday that TV news reporter, Fran Simmons, was in the hospital coffee shop asking questions. Was she there at your suggestion?”
“No, I didn’t know Fran was going there,” she responded with a shrug of her shoulders, “but it’s fine with me.”
“Oh Molly, please,” Jenna murmured. “Don’t you understand what you’re doing to yourself?”
“Yes, I do, Jen,” Molly said quietly but firmly.
Cal set his glass on the table with unnecessary force, causing a few drops to splash from it.
Molly resisted the urge to immediately mop up the spill, part of her impulse to do anything to escape this nightmare. Instead, she looked at the two men who had been her husband’s partners.