As he drove home, Dr. Daniels thought, Jenna Whitehall may be Molly’s best friend, but she is married to a man who tolerates no interference and who lets no one get in his way. It occurred to him that this renewed interest in the scandal surrounding the death of Gary Lasch, the founder of Remington Health Management, surely wasn’t a welcome turn of events to Remington’s chairman of the board.
Is Whitehall in Molly’s home as the husband of her best friend, or is he there because he’s trying to figure the best plan for damage control? Daniels wondered.
* * *
Jenna had brought asparagus au gratin, rack of lamb, tiny new potatoes, broccoli, and biscuits—all of the dishes prepared and ready to be served. With decisive haste she set the table in the kitchen, while Cal opened a bottle of wine that he let Molly know was a Château Lafite Rothschild Bordeaux, “from the best of my private stock.”
Molly looked up in time to catch Philip’s bemused expression, and Jenna’s slight grimace at Cal’s boasting, pretentious tone.
They mean well, she thought wearily, but I really wish they hadn’t come. They’re trying so hard to pretend it’s an ordinary evening in Greenwich, and here we are, getting together at the last minute for an informal dinner in the kitchen. She remembered how, years ago, when Gary was still alive and she thought her life was happy, Jenna and Cal would occasionally drop in unannounced, invariably staying for dinner.
Domestic bliss—that was my life. I used to love to cook and thought nothing of whipping up a dinner in minutes. I enjoyed showing off the fact that I didn’t need or want a cook or a live-in housekeeper. Gary used to seem so proud of me: “She’s not only gorgeous and smart, she can cook. How did I get so lucky?” he would ask, beaming at her before their guests.
And all of it a charade, she thought.
Her head was aching so much. She pressed her temples with the tips of her fingers, massaging gently, trying to make the pain go away.
“Molly, would you rather just skip all this?” Philip asked quietly. He was sitting opposite her at the table, both of them ordered there by Jenna.
“As a husband and a doctor, he wasn’t worth the price you paid for killing him, Mrs. Lasch.”
Molly glanced up to see Philip staring at her.
“Molly, whatever do you mean?” he asked.
Confused, she looked past him. Jenna and Cal were staring at her too. “I’m sorry,” she said haltingly. “I guess I’m at the point where I don’t know the difference between what I’m thinking and what I’m saying. I just remembered that Annamarie Scalli said that to me when I met her at the diner Sunday night. What struck me at the time was that she was so sure I killed Gary, while I had gone to meet her harboring the hope that I might find out that she had been angry enough to have killed him.”
“Molly, don’t think about it now,” Jenna urged. “Drink your wine. Try to relax.”
“Jenna, listen to me,” Molly said, her tone passionate. “Annamarie said that as a doctor, Gary wasn’t worth the price I paid for killing him. What made her say that? He was a wonderful doctor. Wasn’t he?”
There was a silence as Jenna continued her preparations. Cal just stared at her. “You understand what I’m getting at?” Molly said, her voice almost pleading. “Maybe there was something in Gary’s professional life that we don’t know about.”
“It’s something to pursue,” Philip said quietly. “Why don’t we talk to Fran about it?” He looked up at Cal and Jenna. “Initially I was against Molly cooperating in any way with Fran Simmons,” he said, “but having been around her and seen her in action, I now honestly believe that she is in Molly’s corner.”
He turned to Molly. “By the way, she called while you were asleep. She’s spoken to the boy who was working at the counter in the diner on Sunday night. He says he didn’t hear you call out to Annamarie a second time, which is what the waitress is claiming. It’s a small thing, but we should be able to use him to discredit her testimony.”
“That’s good—I know I didn’t remember that,” Molly said. “Sometimes, though, I wonder what is real and what I’ve imagined. I just told Dr. Daniels that something keeps coming into my head about the night Gary died—something about a door. He says it’s a good sign that I’m starting to have specific memories. Maybe there are other answers to these deaths. I hope so. I do know that I can never go to prison again.” She paused, then whispered more to herself than to the others, “That won’t happen.”
There was a long silence, which Jenna broke with cheerful determination. “Hey, let’s not let this great dinner get cold,” she said, taking her place at the table.
* * *
An hour later, on the way home in the car, sitting in the back as Lou Knox drove them, Jenna and Cal were silent until Jenna said, “Cal, do you think it’s possible that Fran Simmons will uncover something that could help Molly? She is an investigative reporter, and maybe even a good one.”
“But first you have to have something to investigate,” Cal Whitehall said brusquely. “She doesn’t. The more Fran Simmons digs, the more she’ll find herself coming back to the same answer, which is the obvious one.”
“What do you think Annamarie Scalli could have meant by criticizing Gary as a doctor?”
“My guess, my dear, is that Molly’s little bursts of memory are highly unreliable. I wouldn’t attach any importance to them, and I’m sure no jury would either. You heard her. She’s threatening suicide.”
“It’s wrong for people to give Molly unreasonable hope. I wish Fran Simmons would stay out of it!”
“Yes, Fran Simmons is a terrible nuisance,” Cal agreed.
He did not have to look at the rearview mirror to know that Lou Knox was watching him as he drove. With a barely perceptible nod, he answered Lou’s unspoken question.
50
Did I detect a change in Tasha when I was there last week, or am I just imagining it now? Barbara Colbert asked herself as she stared out into the darkness on the drive to Greenwich. Nervously she clasped and unclasped her hands.
Dr. Black’s call had come just as she was preparing to leave for the Met, where she had a subscription for the Tuesday night opera performance series.
“Mrs. Colbert,” the doctor had said, his tone grave, “I’m afraid there’s been a change in Tasha’s condition. We believe that her systems may be shutting down.”
Please let me get there in time, Barbara prayed. I want to be with her when she dies. They’ve always told me that she probably doesn’t hear or understand anything we say to her, but I’ve never been sure of that. When the time comes, I want her to know that I am there. I want my arms around her when she draws her last breath.
She sat back and gasped. The thought of losing her child had the physical impact of a dagger in her heart. Tasha . . . Tasha . . . , she thought. How did this ever happen?
Barbara Colbert arrived to find Peter Black at Tasha’s bedside. His countenance conveyed a kind of practiced grimness. “We can only watch and wait,” he said, his voice solicitous.
Barbara ignored him. One of the nurses moved a chair close to the bed so that she could sit with her arm slipped around Tasha’s shoulders. She looked into her daughter’s lovely face, so serene, as though she were simply sleeping and might open her eyes at any minute and say hello.
Barbara stayed next to her daughter throughout the long night, unaware of the nurses in the background, or of Peter Black adjusting the solution that dripped into Tasha’s veins.
At six o’clock, Black touched her arm. “Mrs. Colbert, it appears that Tasha has stabilized, at least to a degree. Why don’t you have a cup of coffee and let the nurses attend to her? You can come back then.”
She looked up. “Yes, and I must speak to my chauffeur. You’re sure . . .”
He knew what she meant, and nodded. “No one can be sure, but I don’t think Tasha is ready to leave us yet, at least not in the next little while.”
Mrs. Colbert went out to the reception area. As she expected
, Dan was asleep in one of the club chairs. A hand on his shoulder was enough to bring him to alert wakefulness.
Dan had been with the family since before Tasha was born, and over the years they had grown very close. Barbara answered his unasked question: “Not yet. They say she has stabilized for now. But it could be anytime.”
They had rehearsed this moment. “I’ll call the boys, Mrs. Colbert.”
Fifty and forty-eight years old, and he still calls them the boys, Barbara thought, vaguely comforted by the realization that Dan was grieving with her. “Ask one of them to pick up a bag for me at the apartment. Call and tell Netty to have it ready.”
She forced herself to go into the small coffee shop. The sleepless night had not affected her yet, but she knew it was inevitable.
The waitress in the coffee shop clearly knew about Tasha’s condition. “We’re praying,” she said, then sighed. “It’s been a sad week. You know, Mr. Magim died early Saturday morning.”
“No, I didn’t. I’m sorry.”
“Not that it wasn’t expected, but we were all hoping he’d make his eightieth birthday. You know what was nice, though? His eyes opened just before he died, and Mrs. Magim swears they focused right on her.”
If only Natasha could say good-bye to me, Barbara thought. We were a very happy family, but never a particularly demonstrative one. I regret that now. So many parents end every conversation with their children by saying, “I love you.” I always thought that was overdone, even silly. Now I wish I had never let Tasha out of my presence without saying that to her each and every time.
When Barbara went back to the suite, Tasha’s condition appeared to be unchanged. Dr. Black was standing at the window of the sitting room, his back to her. He was using his cellular phone. Before Barbara could indicate her presence, she overheard him say, “I don’t approve, but if you insist, then I don’t have a choice, do I?” His voice was tight with anger—or was it fear?
I wonder who gives him orders, she thought.
51
On Wednesday morning, Fran had an appointment in Greenwich with Dr. Roy Kirkwood, who had been the primary care physician of Josephine Gallo, the mother of Tim Mason’s friend, whose death Fran had been asked to investigate. She was surprised to find the doctor’s reception room empty—not a usual situation for a physician these days, she thought.
The receptionist slid open the glass that separated her desk from the waiting area. “Miss Simmons,” she said without asking Fran’s name, “the doctor is expecting you.”
Roy Kirkwood looked to be in his early sixties. His thinning silver hair, silver eyebrows, steel-frame glasses, lined forehead, and kindly, intelligent eyes all made Fran immediately think that this man looked like a doctor. If I were here because I was sick, I’d have confidence in him, she decided.
On the other hand, it occurred to her as he politely indicated the seat opposite his desk, she was here because one of his patients was dead.
“It’s good of you to see me, Doctor,” she began.
“No, I would say that it is necessary for me to see you, Ms. Simmons,” he interrupted. “You may have noticed that my reception room is empty. Other than longtime patients, for whom I will care until I can transfer their records to other physicians, I am retired.”
“Has this anything to do with Billy Gallo’s mother?”
“It has everything to do with her, Ms. Simmons. Mind you, Mrs. Gallo might very easily have had a fatal heart attack in any circumstances. But with a quadruple bypass she also would have had a very good chance to live. Her cardiogram was within the normal range, but a cardiogram is not the only thing that can reveal that a patient is in trouble. I suspected she might be suffering from blocked arteries and wanted to do extensive testing of her. My request, however, was vetoed.”
“By whom?”
“By management—Remington Health Management, to be specific.”
“Did you protest the veto?”
“Ms. Simmons, I protested and continued to protest until there was no point. I protested that veto as I have many others in cases where my recommendations that my patients see specialists were denied.”
“Then Billy Gallo was right—his mother might have had a longer life. Is that what you’re saying?”
Roy Kirkwood looked both defeated and sad. “Ms. Simmons, after Mrs. Gallo had the coronary occlusion, I went to Peter Black and demanded that the necessary bypass surgery be done.”
“And what did Dr. Black say?”
“He consented, reluctantly, but then Mrs. Gallo died. We might have saved her if that surgery had been authorized earlier. Of course, to the HMO she was just a statistic, and her death is a plus for the Remington profit line, so you have to wonder if they really care.”
“You did your best, Doctor,” Fran said quietly.
“Best? I’m at the end of my career and can retire comfortably. But God have pity on the new doctors. Most of them start out deep in debt and have to pay back loans for their education. Believe it or not, $100,000 is an average amount they owe. Then they have to borrow to equip an office and set up a practice. The way it stands today, they either work directly for a health maintenance organization, or have ninety percent of their patients enrolled in them.
“Today a doctor is told how many patients he must see. Some plans even go so far as to allot a doctor fifteen minutes a patient and require that he keep a time chart. It is not uncommon for doctors to work a fifty-five-hour week, for less money than they were making before the HMOs took over medicine.”
“What’s the answer?” Fran asked.
“Nonprofit HMOs run by doctors, I think. Also doctors forming their own unions. Medicine is making remarkable strides. There are many new medications and procedures available to doctors, some that enable us to prolong lives and give better quality of life. The incongruity is that these new procedures and services are being arbitrarily denied, as they were in Mrs. Gallo’s case.”
“How does Remington stack up with other HMOs, Doctor? It was, after all, founded by two doctors.”
“By two doctors who inherited the sterling mantle of a great physician, Jonathan Lasch. Gary Lasch wasn’t in the same class with his father—either as a doctor or a human being. As for Remington, it’s as lean and mean as they get. For example, they’ve been systematically shaving services and personnel at Lasch Hospital as part of their ongoing cost-cutting campaign. I only wish Remington and the HMOs they’re absorbing would be taken over by the plan that’s headed by the former surgeon general. He’s the kind of man the health system needs.”
Roy Kirkwood stood up. “I apologize, Ms. Simmons. I realize I’m just letting off steam to you. But I do have a reason. I think you would be rendering a great service if you used the power of your program to wake up the public to this increasingly callous and alarming situation. Too many people are unaware of the fact that the lunatics have taken over the asylum.”
Fran stood up as well. “Dr. Kirkwood, did you know Dr. Jack Morrow?”
Kirkwood smiled slightly. “Jack Morrow was the best. As smart as they come, a great diagnostician, loved his patients. His death was a tragedy.”
“It seems strange that his murder has never been solved.”
“If you think I’m upset with Remington Health Management, you should have heard Jack Morrow. I admit he probably went too far in pushing his complaints.”
“ ‘Too far’?” Fran asked quickly.
“Jack could get hot under the collar. I understand that he actually referred to Peter Black and Gary Lasch as ‘a pair of murderers.’ That’s going too far, although I confess it’s the same way I felt about Black and the system when Josephine Gallo died. But I didn’t say it.”
“Who heard Dr. Morrow make that statement, Dr. Kirkwood?”
“Well, Mrs. Russo, my receptionist, for one. She used to work for Jack. If there were others who heard him, I’m not aware of it.”
“Is she the lady outside?”
“Yes, she is.”
/> “Thank you for your time, Doctor.”
Fran went into the reception room and stopped at the desk. “I understand you worked for Dr. Morrow, Mrs. Russo,” she said to the small, gray-haired woman. “He was so kind to me when my father died.”
“He was kind to everyone.”
“Mrs. Russo, you knew my name when I came in. Do you know that I’m investigating Dr. Gary Lasch’s death for the True Crime television program?”
“Yes, I do.”
“Dr. Kirkwood just told me that you heard Dr. Morrow refer to Dr. Lasch and Dr. Black as a ‘pair of murderers.’ That’s pretty strong language.”
“He’d just come back from the hospital and was terribly upset. I’m sure it had been the usual business of fighting for a patient who’d been denied a procedure. And then the poor man was shot to death only a few nights later.”
“If I remember correctly, the police decided that a drug addict broke in and surprised him working late in his office.”
“That’s right. Every drawer of his desk was dumped on the floor, and the medical supply cabinet was emptied out. I understand that drug addicts can be desperate, but why did they have to shoot him? Why couldn’t they take what they wanted and just tie him up or something?” Tears glistened in the woman’s eyes.
Unless whoever broke in was afraid of being recognized, Fran thought. That’s the usual reason a burglary becomes a homicide. She started to say good-bye, then remembered the other question she wanted to ask.
“Mrs. Russo, was anyone else around when Dr. Morrow called Drs. Lasch and Black a pair of murderers?”
“Only two people, thank goodness, Miss Simmons. Wally Barry, a longtime patient of Dr. Morrow’s, and his mother, Edna.”
52
Lou Knox lived in an apartment over the garage that sat to the side of the Whitehalls’ residence. The three-room unit suited him well. One of the few hobbies he enjoyed was woodworking, and Calvin Whitehall had allowed him use of one of the storerooms in the oversized garage for his tools and worktable. He also had permitted Knox to refinish the apartment to suit himself.