* * *
When the phone rang, Ruthie Roitenberg was just locking her desk, and Dr. Daniels was reaching into the closet for his coat. They looked at each other.
“Do you want to let the service pick it up?” Ruthie asked. “As of now, Dr. MacLean is on call.”
John Daniels was tired. He’d had a difficult session with one of his most troubled patients and felt every day of his seventy-five years. He was looking forward to getting home, thanking heaven that the dinner party he and his wife had planned to attend had been canceled.
Some instinct, however, told him he should take the call. “At least find out who it is, Ruthie,” he said.
He saw the shock in Ruthie’s eyes when she looked up at him and mouthed, “Molly Lasch.” For a moment, he seemed unsure as to what to do and stood with his coat still in his hand as Ruthie said, “I’m afraid the doctor may already be gone, Mrs. Lasch. He just went out to the elevator. I’ll see if I can catch him.”
Molly Lasch. Daniels paused for a moment, then walked to the desk and took the phone from Ruthie. “I heard about Annamarie Scalli, Molly. How can I help you?”
He listened, and thirty minutes later Molly was in his office.
* * *
“I’m sorry to have taken so long getting here, Doctor. I went to get my car, but the police wouldn’t let me take it. I had to call a taxi.”
Molly’s tone was one of bewilderment, as if she herself didn’t believe what she was saying. Her eyes made Daniels think of the cliché of the deer caught in the headlights, although she was clearly more than merely startled. No, she seemed almost haunted. He realized immediately that she was in danger of slipping into the same lethargic state that had come over her after Gary Lasch’s death.
“Why don’t you rest on the couch while we talk, Molly,” he suggested. She was seated in the chair opposite his desk. When she did not respond, he crossed to her and put his hand under her elbow. He could feel the rigidity of her body. “Come on, Molly,” he coaxed as he urged her to stand.
She allowed herself to be guided by him. “I know how late it is. You’re very kind to see me now, Doctor.”
Daniels was reminded of the beautifully mannered little girl he had watched at the club. A golden child, he thought, the perfect product of breeding and quiet wealth. Whoever then would have dreamt that this moment was waiting in her future, suspected of a crime—a second crime—the police searching her home for evidence to use against her. He shook his head ruefully.
For the next hour she tried to explain aloud—for her own benefit as well as his—exactly why she had needed to talk to Annamarie.
“What is it, Molly? Tell me what you’re thinking.”
“It’s that I realize now that when I ran away that week, up to Cape Cod, I went because I was angry. But I wasn’t angry because I’d found out about Annamarie. In truth, Doctor, I wasn’t at all angry because Gary was involved with another woman. I was angry because I had lost my baby and she was still pregnant. I should have had that baby.”
With a sinking heart, John Daniels waited for Molly to continue.
“Doctor, I wanted to see Annamarie because I thought that if I didn’t kill Gary, then maybe she was the one who did. Nobody could prove where she was that night. And I knew she was angry with him; it was obvious from her voice when I overheard her talking to him on the phone.”
“Did you ask her about that when you met her last night?”
“Yes. And I believed her when she said she didn’t kill him. But she told me that Gary was glad I had lost the baby, that he was going to ask for a divorce, and that the baby would have complicated everything.”
“Men often tell the other woman that they’re planning to get a divorce. Much of the time it’s not true.”
“I know that, and maybe he was lying to her. But he wasn’t lying when he told her that he was glad I’d lost my baby.”
“Annamarie told you that?”
“Yes.”
“How did that make you feel?”
“Doctor, that’s what scares me so much. I think that at that moment I hated her with every drop of blood in my body, just for even saying those words.”
With every drop of blood in my body, Daniels thought.
Molly suddenly started talking very rapidly. “You know what went through my mind, Doctor? That line from the Bible, ‘Rachel mourned her lost children and would not be comforted.’ I thought of how I had mourned my baby. I had just felt life stirring in me, and then I lost it. In that moment I became Rachel, and the anger drained away and I was in mourning.”
Molly sighed, and when she continued, all emotion had been drained from her voice. “Doctor, Annamarie left ahead of me. She was gone when I got to the parking lot. My very clear memory is that I came home and went to bed early.”
“ ‘Very clear memory,’ Molly?”
“Doctor, the cops are searching my house. The detectives tried to talk with me this morning. Philip ordered me not to tell anyone, not even Jen, what Annamarie Scalli told me.”
Her voice became agitated again. “Doctor, is it like last time? Have I done something terrible and blotted it out again? If I have, and they can prove it, I’m not going to let them put me back in prison. I’d rather be dead.”
Again, Daniels thought. “Molly, since you’ve been home, have you had any more feelings about someone else being in the house that night Gary died?”
He watched as the tension eased from her body and a measure of hope flickered alive in her eyes. “There was someone in the house that night,” she said. “I’m beginning to be sure of it.”
And I’m beginning to be just as sure that there was no one there, Daniels thought sadly.
A few minutes later, he drove Molly home. The house was dark. She pointed out that there were no cars parked outside, no sign of the police. Daniels would not leave until Molly was safely inside, until she had turned on the foyer lights. “Be sure to take that pill I gave you tonight,” he cautioned. “We’ll talk tomorrow.”
Doctor Daniels waited until he heard the click of the front door lock before he walked slowly back to his car.
He did not believe that she had yet reached the point where she would harm herself. But if evidence was found to justify an indictment against her in Annamarie Scalli’s death, he knew that Molly Lasch might choose another way to escape reality. Not dissociative amnesia this time, but death.
He drove home slowly, sadly, to his very late dinner.
43
When Fran reached the office on Tuesday morning, she found a message marked “urgent” from Billy Gallo. It stated simply that he was Tim Mason’s friend, and he would like her to please call him on a very important matter.
When she called him back, Gallo picked up on the first ring and got directly to the point. “Ms. Simmons, my mother was buried yesterday. She died from a major heart attack that could and should have been prevented. I hear that you’re doing a story on the murder of Dr. Gary Lasch, and I wanted to ask you to expand it to include an investigation into the so-called medical insurance plan he started.”
“Tim told me about your mother, and I’m truly sorry for your loss,” Fran said, “but I’m sure there is a procedure whereby you can register a complaint if you feel that she wasn’t cared for properly.”
“Oh, but you know the runaround you get when you try to register complaints, Ms. Simmons,” Billy Gallo said. “Look, I’m a musician and I can’t afford to lose my job, which unfortunately is with a show in Detroit. I’ve got to get back there soon. I talked to Roy Kirkwood, my mother’s primary care physician, and he told me he had made an urgent recommendation that further tests be done. But guess what? The request was denied. He strongly believed that more could have been done for my mother, but they wouldn’t even let him try. Please talk to him, Ms. Simmons. I went in to his office ready to bash his head in, and I came out feeling sorry for him. Dr. Kirkwood is only in his early sixties, but he told me he’s closing his practice and taking earl
y retirement. That’s how disgusted he is with Remington Health Management.”
Bash his head in, Fran thought. The wild thought went through her mind that there just might be one chance in a million that a relative of some patient might have felt that way about Gary Lasch.
“Give me Dr. Kirkwood’s phone number and address,” she said. “I’ll talk to him.”
* * *
At eleven o’clock that morning she was once again turning off the Merritt Parkway into Greenwich.
Molly had agreed to have lunch with her at one o’clock, but despite Fran’s pleading, she would not leave the house. “I can’t,” she said simply. “I feel too exposed. Everyone would just stare at me. It would be awful. I can’t do it.”
She accepted Fran’s offer to pick up a quiche at the bakery in town and bring it with her. “Mrs. Barry isn’t here on Tuesday,” she’d explained, “and the police towed my car, so I can’t get out to shop.”
The only good news so far, Fran thought, is that Mrs. Barry won’t be hanging around when Molly and I have lunch. It would be nice for once to talk to Molly without that woman marching in and out of the room every two minutes.
But she did want to see Edna Barry, and her first stop once she reached Greenwich was an unannounced visit to her home.
I’m going to be direct with her, Fran decided as she consulted her directions to Barry’s house. For some unknown reason Edna Barry is hostile to Molly and afraid of me. Maybe I can find out what her problem is.
* * *
The best laid plans of mice and men, she thought as she stood on the narrow top step of Edna Barry’s home and rang the doorbell. There was no answer, and Barry’s red Subaru was not in the driveway.
Disappointed, Fran debated the wisdom of slipping a note under the door that stated that she had stopped by because it was important they talk. She knew such a message would upset Mrs. Barry, and that was fine. It was her intention to get the woman rattled.
Then again, would a note only serve to warn her and make her even more wary? she wondered. There’s no question she’s holding something back, and it could be terribly important. I don’t want to risk scaring her off.
As Fran debated what to do, a call rang out:
“Yoo-hoooo.”
She turned to see a woman in her fifties with a beehive hairdo and harlequin glasses rushing across the lawn from the house next door.
“Edna should be back soon,” the woman explained breathlessly as she reached Fran. “Her son, Wally, was feeling pretty upset today, so Edna took him to the doctor. When Wally doesn’t take his medicine, he’s a real problem. Why don’t you just wait for her in my house? I’m Marta Jones, Edna’s neighbor.”
“That’s very nice of you,” Fran said sincerely. “Mrs. Barry wasn’t expecting me, but I really would like to wait for her.” And I would love to talk with you, she added to herself. “I’m Fran Simmons.”
Marta Jones suggested they wait in the television room, which obviously had originally been part of the porch. “It’s so nice and cheerful, and we’ll be able to see Edna when she comes home,” she explained as she brought in steaming cups of freshly brewed coffee.
“I like coffee best when it’s made in the old-fashioned percolator,” she explained. “Doesn’t taste the same from all those new machines.” She settled back in the armchair opposite Fran. “It’s just too bad Edna had to take Wally to the doctor today. At least she didn’t have to take time off from her job. She works for Molly Lasch three mornings a week—Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.”
Fran nodded, happy to store that bit of information in her head.
“You may have heard about Molly Lasch,” Marta Jones said. “She’s the woman who just got out of prison after serving time for killing her husband, and now the rumor is that she’s going to be arrested for killing her husband’s girlfriend. Have you heard of her, Ms. . . . I’m sorry, I didn’t get your last name.”
“It’s Simmons, Fran Simmons.”
She saw the look in Marta Jones’s eyes and knew what was going through her head. Fran Simmons. She’s that television reporter and the daughter of the man who stole the library fund money and shot himself. Fran braced herself, but Marta Jones’s expression changed to one of sympathy. “I won’t pretend I don’t know about your father,” she said quietly. “I was so sorry for you and your mother at that time.”
“Thank you.”
“And now you’re on television, and you’re doing a program on Molly. So of course you know all about her.”
“That’s right.”
“Well, maybe Edna will listen to you. Is it okay if I call you Fran?”
“Of course.”
“I laid awake all last night, wondering if it isn’t dangerous for Edna to work for Molly Lasch. I mean, it was one thing for her to kill her husband. That was temporary insanity, I’m sure. I mean, he was cheating on her that way and everything. But if less than a week after she gets out of prison she stabs her husband’s girlfriend to death, I say she’s out of control.”
Fran thought of what Gus Brandt had said about Molly. The idea that she’s a crazed, out-of-control killer is going to reach epidemic proportions, she realized.
“I’ll tell you this,” Marta continued. “I wouldn’t want to be alone for hours in a house with that kind of person. This morning when I talked to Edna—when she was on her way to the doctor with Wally—I said, ‘Edna, what would happen to Wally if Molly Lasch goes nuts and hits you over the head or stabs you to death? Who would take care of him?’ ”
“Does Wally require much care?”
“As long as he takes his medicine, he’s pretty good. But when he doesn’t take it and gets balky, well, Wally becomes a different person, sometimes a little out of control. Just yesterday he took the key to Molly Lasch’s house off Edna’s key ring. He wanted to go visit her. Of course Edna made him put it right back.”
“He took the key to Molly Lasch’s house?” Fran tried to keep her voice level. “Has he ever done that before?”
“Oh, I don’t think so. Edna doesn’t allow him to go there. Dr. Lasch was so fussy about his collection of early-American art. Some of it apparently was quite valuable. I do know though that Wally stopped in there once and picked up something he shouldn’t have, and Edna was a wreck. He didn’t break anything, but it was a valuable piece, and apparently Dr. Lasch just went on like a madman about it, yelling and ordering him out of the house. Wally didn’t like that at all . . . Oh look, there’s Edna now.”
* * *
They caught up with Edna Barry as she was opening her front door. The stricken look on Mrs. Barry’s face when she saw Fran with Marta Jones was further confirmation to Fran that the woman had something to hide.
“Go inside, Wally,” she snapped at her son.
Fran barely got a glimpse at the tall, good-looking man in his thirties before Edna shoved him into the house and pulled the door closed.
When she turned to face Fran, anger flushed her cheeks and made her voice tremble. “Miss Simmons,” she said, “I don’t know why you’re here, but it’s been a very difficult morning for me, and I can’t talk to you now.”
“Oh, Edna,” Marta Jones asked, “isn’t Wally any calmer?”
“Wally’s fine,” Edna Barry said sharply, her voice registering a mixture of fear and anger. “Marta, I hope you haven’t been filling Miss Simmons’s ears with mean gossip about him.”
“Edna, how can you say that? Nobody’s a better friend to Wally than I am.”
Tears filled Edna Barry’s eyes. “I know. I know. It’s just so hard . . . You have to excuse me. I’ll call you, Marta.”
For a moment Fran and Marta Jones stood on the steps, looking at the door Edna Barry had just closed in their faces. “Edna’s not a rude person,” Marta said quietly. “It’s just that she’s had a hard time of it. First Wally’s father died, and then Dr. Morrow. Then right after that, Dr. Lasch was murdered, and—”
“Dr. Morrow?” Fran queried, interruptin
g Marta Jones. “What did he have to do with Edna Barry?”
“Oh, he was Wally’s primary care physician and was really great at handling him. He was also real nice. If Wally started refusing to take his medicine, or made any kind of trouble, all Edna had to do was call Dr. Morrow.”
“Dr. Morrow,” Fran said. “You are talking about Dr. Jack Morrow?”
“Yes. Did you know him?”
“Yes, I did.” Fran thought again about the kind young man who, fourteen years earlier, had embraced her when he broke the news of her father’s death.
“If you remember, he was murdered in a robbery only two weeks before Dr. Lasch died,” Marta said sadly.
“I imagine that upset Wally?”
“Don’t ask. It was awful. And I guess it was right after that when Dr. Lasch yelled at him. Poor Wally. People don’t understand. It’s not his fault he’s the way he is.”
No, Fran thought as she thanked Marta Jones for her hospitality and got into her car. But people not only don’t understand; they may not even know about the extent of Wally’s problems. Could Edna Barry be covering up something? Is it conceivable that she allowed Molly to be convicted of a crime her son actually committed?
Was it possible that it had happened that way?
44
The sleeping pill Dr. Daniels had given Molly had been highly effective. She had taken it at ten o’clock the night before, and she’d slept until eight this morning. It had been a deep, heavy sleep, from which she emerged somewhat groggy, but refreshed.
She put on a robe and set out to get coffee and juice, which she would bring upstairs to bed; once settled in, she would try to put everything in focus. But even before she reached the kitchen, she realized that first she had to take care of the disorder she saw all about her in the house.
Though they had made an effort to put things right, the police had changed the whole feeling of the house. It was subtle, but Molly recognized all the changes. Everything they had touched or moved was askew, out of order, not right.
The harmony of her home, the remembrance of which had been her surcease in those days and nights in prison, was gone and had to be restored.