“Yes, it is. It had been obvious all week that Gary was upset, and on that Sunday Cal Whitehall and I went to see him. That’s when we heard about it.” Peter Black glanced at his watch and shifted forward slightly.
He’s ready to kick me out, Fran thought. I’ve got to get a couple more questions in first, though.
“Doctor, Gary Lasch was a close friend of yours, wasn’t he?”
“Very close. We met in medical school.”
“Did you see each other regularly after medical school?”
“I wouldn’t say that. I was working in Chicago right after graduation. Gary came here as soon as he completed his residency and went into practice with his father.” He stood. “Ms. Simmons, I really must insist on getting back to work.” He turned and walked toward his desk.
Fran followed him. “Doctor, one last question. Did you ask Gary Lasch to bring you here?”
“Gary sent for me after his father died.”
“Doctor, with all due respect, he invited you to join him as an equal partner in the institution his father founded. There were a number of excellent physicians already in the Greenwich area who surely would have bought into the practice, but he chose you, even though you had only worked as a staff doctor in a rather undistinguished Chicago hospital. What made you so special?”
Peter Black whirled to face Fran. “Get out, Ms. Simmons!” he barked. “You have extraordinary gall to come up here and make libelous insinuations when half the people in this town were victims of your father’s thievery.”
Fran winced. “Touché,” she said. “Nevertheless, Dr. Black, I don’t intend to stop looking for answers to my questions. You’re certainly not providing me with any, are you?”
59
On Thursday morning, in Buffalo, New York, after a private funeral Mass, the remains of Annamarie Scalli were to be quietly interred in the family burial plot. No details of the service had been made public. There had been no wake. Her sister, Lucille Scalli Bonaventure, accompanied by her husband and two grown children, were the only people present for the private Mass and interment.
The lack of publicity had been a decision made and enforced by a grimly purposeful Lucy. Sixteen years older than Annamarie, she had always referred to her baby sister as her first child. Pleasant faced but plain herself, Lucy had delighted in the pretty little girl who grew up to be as smart as she was nice.
As Annamarie matured, Lucy and her mother frequently conferred about her choices in boyfriends and her possible career paths. They approved heartily when she chose nursing. It was a totally worthwhile career, and there was a good chance she would end up marrying a doctor. Who wouldn’t want to marry a girl like Annamarie? they agreed.
When she accepted the job at Lasch Hospital in Greenwich, Connecticut, they initially had been disappointed to have her go so far away from home, but when she twice brought Dr. Jack Morrow with her to Buffalo for a weekend visit with her mother, it had seemed as if all their dreams for Annamarie were going to come true.
As Lucy sat in the front row of the chapel during the brief service, she thought back to that happier time. She remembered how Jack Morrow would joke with Mama, telling her that even if Annamarie couldn’t cook like she did, he’d put up with her. She remembered especially the night he had complained, “Mama, how am I going to make that girl of yours fall in love with me?”
She was in love with him, Lucy thought as scalding tears burned her cheeks—until that hateful Gary Lasch decided to go after her. She shouldn’t be lying in that casket, Lucy thought angrily. She should have been married to Dr. Jack these past seven years. She could have been both a mother and a nurse—he wouldn’t have wanted her to give that up. Nursing was as much in her soul as being a doctor was in his.
Lucy turned and looked with anguish at the casket, covered with the white cloth symbolizing Annamarie’s baptism. You suffered so much because of that . . . that bastard, Gary Lasch, she thought. After he turned your head, you tried to tell me that you weren’t ready to marry Jack. But that wasn’t true. You were ready. You had just lost your way, Annamarie. You were a kid. He knew what he was doing.
“May her soul and the souls of all the faithful departed . . .”
Lucy was barely aware of the monsignor’s voice as he blessed her sister’s casket. Her grief and her anger were too great. Annamarie, look at what that man did to you, Lucy thought. He ruined your life in every way. You even gave up bedside nursing, and at one time that was all you wanted to do. You wouldn’t talk about it, but I know you never forgave yourself for something that happened in that hospital. What was it?
And Dr. Jack. What about him? Poor Mama was so crazy about him, so impressed. She never called him Jack. Always Dr. Jack. You admitted that you never believed a drug addict killed him.
Annamarie, why were you so afraid for all those years? Even when Molly Lasch was in prison, you were afraid?
Little sister . . . Little sister.
Lucy became aware of raw, noisy sobs filling the chapel and knew they were coming from her. Her husband patted her hand, but she pulled it away. Right now the only person in the universe she felt connected to was Annamarie. The only consolation that came to her as the casket was wheeled down the aisle of the chapel was that maybe in a different world her sister and Jack Morrow might have a second chance at happiness.
* * *
After the interment, Lucy’s son and daughter escaped to their jobs, and her husband went back to the supermarket where he was a manager.
Lucy went home and began going through the dresser that had been Annamarie’s when she was growing up. It was kept in the bedroom in which she always stayed when she visited in Buffalo.
The top three drawers contained underwear, hosiery, and sweaters, left there so that Annamarie could use them when she came up for a weekend.
The bottom drawer was filled with pictures, framed and unframed, family albums, envelopes stuffed with snapshots, some letters and postcards.
It was when she was going through those pictures, tears blurring her vision and burning her eyes, that Lucy received a call from Fran Simmons.
“I know who you are,” Lucy snapped, her voice charged with angry emotion. “You’re that reporter who wants to air that dirty business all over again. Well, leave me alone, and leave my sister to rest in peace.”
Speaking from Manhattan, Fran said, “I’m very sorry for your loss, but I have to warn you—Annamarie won’t rest in peace if the case against Molly Lasch comes to trial. Molly’s lawyer will have no choice but to portray Annamarie in the darkest possible terms.”
“That’s not fair!” Lucy wailed. “She was no home wrecker. She was just a kid when she met Gary Lasch.”
“So was Molly,” Fran said. “The more I hear, the sorrier I am for both of them. Mrs. Bonaventure, I’m flying to Buffalo tomorrow morning, and I want to meet you. Please trust me. I’m only trying to learn the truth about what happened, not just the night Annamarie died, but six or more years ago at the hospital where she worked. I also want to know why Annamarie was so frightened. She was frightened, you know.”
“Yes, I know. Something happened at the hospital not long before Gary Lasch died,” Lucy said dully. “I’m flying down tomorrow to clear out Annamarie’s apartment in Yonkers. You don’t have to fly up here. I’ll meet you there, Miss Simmons.”
60
On Thursday afternoon, Edna Barry called Molly and asked if she could come by and see her for just a few minutes.
“Certainly, Mrs. Barry,” Molly said, her tone intentionally cool. Edna Barry had been positive about the spare key, and not only that, she also had been actually hostile in her insistence that Molly didn’t remember what had transpired. I wonder if she wants to apologize, Molly thought, as she returned to sorting through the stacks of material she had laid out on the floor of the study.
Gary had been meticulously neat and precise in everything he did. Now, thanks to the police, his personal files and medical reference materials were s
cattered and mixed, having been taken apart and haphazardly replaced. What does it matter? she thought. I have nothing if not time.
She had already begun to put aside a stack of pictures that she was planning to send to his mother. None with me in them, of course, she thought wryly, just the ones of Gary with various VIPs.
I never was close to Mrs. Lasch, she thought, and I don’t blame her for hating me. I’m sure I would hate the woman I believed murdered my only child. Hearing about Annamarie Scalli’s death must have brought it all back to her, and chances are the media have been trying to get to her as well.
She flashed momentarily to Annamarie and to their conversation. I wonder who adopted Gary’s son, she thought. I was so desperately hurt when I found out that Annamarie was pregnant. I hated her and I envied her. But even knowing what I do now, about how Gary scorned me, I long for the baby I lost.
Maybe someday I’ll have another chance, she told herself.
Molly was sitting cross-legged on the floor as that last thought registered. She paused, almost shocked at the idea that perhaps someday a different life would be open to her. What a joke, she told herself, shaking her head. Even Jenna, my best friend, made it clear that she thinks my only options are a prison cell or an institution. How could I even imagine that this nightmare will ever end?
But still, she did have that hope, and she knew why. It was because bits of memory were breaking through; moments of the past buried deeply in her subconscious were starting to come to the fore. Something happened last night when I was locking the door, she thought, remembering the odd sensation that had coursed through her. I don’t know what it was, but it was there.
She began to sort the medical and scientific journals and magazines that she remembered Gary had kept in careful chronological order on the bookshelves. The publications were varied, but Gary obviously had had a reason for keeping them. A glance inside a few of them showed that in virtually all he had checked at least one article in the table of contents. They all probably can be thrown out, Molly decided, but out of curiosity I’ll at least glance through them when I get organized here. It will be interesting to see what Gary found worth saving and referencing.
The kitchen doorbell rang, and then she heard Mrs. Barry call. “Molly, it’s me.”
“I’m in the study,” she called out as she continued to stack the magazines, then paused as she listened to the footsteps coming down the hallway. Hearing them, she remembered how often it had crossed her mind that Mrs. Barry had a heavy foot. She never wore anything except orthopedic, rubber-soled shoes, which always made a firm, squishing sound on the floors.
“Molly, I’m sorry.” Edna Barry was barely inside the room before she began to speak.
Molly looked up and knew immediately that Mrs. Barry was not apologizing. Her expression was determined, her mouth set in a firm line. She was dangling the house key in her hand. “I know it’s not a nice thing to do after all these years, but I can’t work for you anymore. And I need to stop right away.”
Bewildered, Molly pushed herself up from the floor and stood. “Mrs. Barry, you don’t have to quit because of the thing about that key. We both think we’re right about whether or not I brought it in from the garden, but I’m sure there’s a reasonable explanation, and I’m confident that Fran Simmons will find it. You must understand why this point is so important to me. If somebody else used that key to come into the house, then it was that person and not me who left it in the drawer. Suppose someone who somehow knew about the key’s hiding place out back came in that Sunday night?”
“I don’t think anyone came in that night,” Edna Barry said, her voice shrill. “And I’m not quitting because of the key. Molly, I’m sorry to say this, but I’m afraid to work for you.”
“Afraid!” Stunned, Molly stared at the housekeeper. “Afraid of what?”
Edna Barry averted her eyes.
“You’re not . . . afraid . . . of me? Oh dear God.” Shocked, Molly reached out her hand. “I’ll take the key, Mrs. Barry. Please leave. Now.”
“Molly, you’ve got to understand. It’s not your fault, but you did kill two people.”
“Get out, Mrs. Barry!”
“Molly, get help. Please get help.”
With something between a groan and a sob, Edna Barry turned and rushed away. Molly waited until she saw the woman’s car turn from the driveway and onto the road before she sank to her knees and buried her face in her hands. As she rocked back and forth, low whimpering sounds escaped from inside her.
She’s known me since I was a baby, and she believes I’m a killer. What chance have I got? she asked herself. What chance have I got?
A few streets away, as she waited for the light to change, a distraught Edna Barry was reminding herself over and over that she had no choice but to give that reason to Molly for quitting. It strengthened her story about the spare key, and it kept people like Fran Simmons from getting too curious about Wally. I’m sorry, Molly, Edna thought, remembering the hurt she’d seen in Molly’s eyes, but you’ve got to understand, blood is thicker than water.
61
Between bites of the lunch the housekeeper had served on a tray in his office, Calvin Whitehall barked orders to Lou Knox. He’d been in a foul mood all morning, partly, Lou suspected, because the Fran Simmons situation was getting under his skin. Lou knew that she was persistently calling for an interview and was refusing to be put off by Cal’s vague promises of trying to set up something. From the talk he had overheard between Jenna and Cal, Lou also knew that Simmons had been scheduled to see Peter Black at noon that day.
When the private phone rang at 12:30, Lou had a feeling it would be Black, calling to report on the meeting. His instincts were right, and whatever it was that Black had to say sent Cal into a rage. “What did you say when she asked why Gary sent for you? If she picks up that scent . . . Why did you even see her in the first place? You know you can’t do anything but hurt yourself. It doesn’t take any brains to know that.”
When Cal slammed down the phone, he looked almost apoplectic. It rang again almost immediately, and his sharp tone quickly softened when he realized who the caller was. “Yes, Doctor, I’ve spoken to Peter, as a matter of fact just a moment ago . . . No, he didn’t tell me anything special. Should he have?”
Lou knew that the caller had to be Adrian Logue, the ophthalmologist, or whatever he claimed to be, who lived at the farmhouse in West Redding. For some reason that Lou didn’t understand, both Whitehall and Black—and before that, Gary Lasch—always treated Logue with kid gloves. Over the years, Lou had occasionally driven Cal out to the farmhouse. It was never a long stay, though, and Lou always had waited in the car.
He’d seen Logue up close only once or twice—a skinny, mild-looking, gray-haired guy, who by now must be in his seventies. It was clear to Lou from watching his boss’s expression that whatever the doctor was telling Cal was sending him over the edge.
It was always a bad sign when Cal went cold instead of exploding. As Lou watched, Cal’s face froze into a tight, icy mask, and his eyes took on the veiled, slit-eyed look that reminded Lou of a tiger about to spring.
When Cal spoke, his voice was controlled but awesome in its confidence and authority. “Doctor, I have every respect for you, but you had absolutely no right to insist Peter Black go through with this procedure, and he had no right to follow your wishes. I can’t think of anything more unnecessarily risky, particularly at this time. Under no circumstances can you be present when the reaction sets in. As usual, you will have to be satisfied with the videotape.”
Lou couldn’t hear what Dr. Logue was saying, but he could tell the pitch of his voice was rising.
Cal interrupted him. “Doctor, I guarantee that you will have the tape tonight.” He hung up the phone abruptly and gave Lou a look that made him know he was in serious trouble.
“I believe I indicated to you that Fran Simmons was a problem,” he said. “It’s time to address that problem.”
&nb
sp; 62
As soon as Fran left Peter Black’s office, she placed a call to Philip Matthews. He was in his office, and from his tone of voice she could tell he was deeply concerned about something.
“Where are you, Fran?” he asked.
“In Greenwich. I’ll be starting back to New York soon.”
“Any chance you could come to my office this afternoon around three? I’m afraid that things are getting worse for Molly.”
“I’ll be there,” Fran said, then pushed the END button on her car phone. She was approaching an intersection and braked as the traffic light changed. Left or right? she asked herself. She wanted to stop at the Greenwich Time office and try to catch Joe Hutnik.
But now a powerful need was compelling her to drive past the house in which she and her parents had lived for those four years. Peter Black’s scornful reference to her father had hurt her deeply. The pain, however, was not for herself, she realized, but for her dad. She wanted to see the house again. It was the last place she had spent time with him.
Let’s do it, she decided. Three blocks later she turned her car onto a tree-lined street that immediately seemed so familiar to her. They had lived in the middle of the block, in a Tudor-style brick and stucco house. She had intended simply to drive by it slowly, but instead she parked at the curb across the street from the house and stared at it with tear-filled eyes.
It was a lovely house, with leaded windows that gleamed in the sunlight. It looks pretty much the same, she thought, as she visualized the long, high-ceilinged living room with the handsome Irish marble fireplace. The library was small, she remembered. Her dad had joked that it was built to house ten books, but she thought it a great place to retreat to.
She was surprised to realize how many good memories were rushing through her mind. If Dad had only seen it through, she thought. Even if he had gone to prison, he would have been released years ago and been able to start over someplace else.