“Oh yes, the program!” Molly sighed. “Was it really just ten days ago that I asked you to start an investigation that I thought would prove my innocence? Oh, the naïveté of the lamb,” she said with a wan smile.
She’s given up hope, Fran thought. She knows in all likelihood that on Monday she’s on her way back to prison to serve the remaining time from her original ten-year sentence, and that’s even before the new trial for the murder of Annamarie Scalli. “Molly, look at me,” she commanded.
“I am looking at you, Fran.”
“Molly, you’ve got to trust me. I believe Gary’s murder is only one of a series of murders that you certainly could not and did not commit. Believe me, I’m going to prove that, and when I do, you’re going to be completely exonerated.”
She’s got to believe that, Fran thought, hoping she had sounded sufficiently convincing. It was apparent to her that Molly was sinking into listless depression.
“And then I’ll get a makeover and dine my way through the best restaurants in New York.” She paused and shook her head. “You and Jenna are great pals, but I think you’re both mixing fact and fiction. I’m afraid my fate is sealed.”
“Molly, I’m on the air tonight, so I have to go and get prepared. Please don’t get rid of anything here.” Fran glanced down at the couch. The photographs were spread out, and she could see that Gary Lasch seemed to be in just about all of them.
Molly noticed Fran looking at the old photos. “Jenna and I were reminiscing before you came. The four of us did have some good times, or at least I thought we did. God knows what my loving husband was thinking back then. Probably something like, ‘Oh boy, another night out with the Stepford wife.’ ”
“Molly, stop it! Stop hurting yourself,” Fran begged.
“Hurting myself? Now why would I need to do that? The whole world is already in on that act. They don’t need any help from me. Fran, you’ve got to get back to New York, so go on. Don’t worry about me. Oh, wait—one quick question. Do you have any use for these old magazines? I glanced at them, but they just contain medical articles Gary was reading. I thought I’d try to read them, but I’m fresh out of intellectual curiosity.”
“Did he write any of the articles?”
“No. He just marked the ones that interested him.”
What interested Gary Lasch as a doctor sure interests me, Fran thought. “Let me take the magazines with me, Molly. I’ll glance at them, then get rid of them for you.” She bent down and picked up the heavy stack from the floor.
Molly held the front door open for her. Fran stood for a moment, torn between the need to be on her way and her reluctance to leave Molly in her obviously despondent frame of mind. “Molly, any memory breakthroughs?”
“I thought I was having some, but like everything else, they seem to be sound and fury, signifying nothing. My brave talk about memory certainly was a mistake, wouldn’t you say? It looks as though on Monday it’s going to buy me four and a half years more of free room and board, and that’s separate from when they convict and sentence me for Annamarie’s murder.”
“Molly, don’t give up!”
Molly, don’t give up. It was a refrain that ran through Fran’s head, as with frequent worried glances at the clock on the dashboard, she drove through the heavier than usual traffic on her way back to New York.
74
“Mom, I don’t want to go to California.” Wally Barry’s tone had become increasingly belligerent throughout the day.
“Wally, we’re simply not going to talk about it anymore,” his mother responded firmly.
Edna watched helplessly as her son slammed out of the kitchen and stomped up the stairs. All day he had absolutely refused to take his medicine, and she was getting concerned.
I’ve got to get him away from here, she thought. I’ll put some of his medicine in a glass of warm milk when he goes to bed. That will help him to sleep and calm him down.
She looked at Wally’s untouched dinner plate. Wally’s appetite was usually very good, and tonight in an effort to appease him, she had prepared a favorite meal—veal chops, asparagus, and mashed potatoes. But instead of eating, he’d sat at the table, muttering to himself, his attitude surly. The voices inside his head were talking to him tonight. Edna could tell, and it worried her.
The phone rang. She was sure that it was Marta; she had to make a quick decision. It would have been nice to have a quiet cup of tea with Marta, but it wasn’t a good idea tonight. If Wally started talking again about the key, and about the night Dr. Lasch died, Marta might start taking him seriously.
It’s probably all just his imagination, Edna told herself, an assurance she had made every time Wally mentioned the night of the murder. And if it isn’t “just his imagination”? she wondered fleetingly, then dismissed the thought. Even if he was there, what happened that night surely wasn’t his fault. The phone was ringing for the fourth time, so she finally picked it up.
It had been a struggle for Marta Jones to dial Edna’s number. She had decided that she’d better warn Edna about her telling Wally that it was okay for him to say good-bye to Molly Lasch. She was going to suggest that maybe tomorrow morning on the way out of town, Edna could drop by Molly’s house and let Wally speak to her. That would satisfy him, Marta was sure.
When Edna answered the phone, she said, “I just thought I’d run over and say good-bye to you and Wally, if that’s all right.”
Edna had her answer prepared. “Marta, to tell you the truth I’m so far behind on getting packed and organized that I’d better not even let you in the door right now. The minute I take a break and sit down, I know I’ll be useless to do anything more tonight. How about coming over in the morning and having some breakfast with us?”
Well, I can’t force myself on her, Marta thought, and she does sound tired. I do hate to upset her. “Sounds good,” she said with forced cheerfulness. “Is Wally helping you, I hope?”
“Wally’s already upstairs in his room, watching television,” Edna said. “He’s had one of his difficult days, so I’m going to put an extra dose of his medicine in warm milk and take it up to him now.”
“Oh, then he’ll be sure to get some rest,” Marta agreed. “I’ll see you in the morning.”
She hung up, relieved to think that Wally was safely in his own room and would soon be asleep. I guess he gave up on the notion of seeing Molly tonight, Marta decided. One less thing for her to worry about.
75
Among the lead stories for that night’s evening news was the death of Natasha Colbert after six years in an irreversible coma, followed by the death, less than twenty-four hours later, of her mother, socialite and philanthropist Barbara Canon Colbert.
Fran sat at her desk in the studio and watched with somber eyes as the pictures flashed on the screen—Tasha, radiant and alive, with flaming red hair; her handsome, elegant mother. Peter Black killed both of you, Fran thought, although realistically, I may never be able to prove it.
She had spoken to Philip Matthews and heard his grim prediction that Molly almost certainly would be back in prison by Monday afternoon. “I spoke to her shortly after you left, Fran,” Philip said. “Then I called Dr. Daniels. He’s going over to see her this evening; he agrees that if she’s taken into custody at the parole board meeting on Monday, she’ll probably have a complete collapse. I’ll be with her, of course, and he wants to be there as well, just to be on the safe side.”
This is one time I hate my job, Fran thought as she received the signal that she was on air: “The Connecticut parole board has called an emergency session for Monday afternoon, suggesting the strong probability that Molly Carpenter Lasch will be returned to prison to finish serving the time left on her original ten-year sentence in the death of her husband, Dr. Gary Lasch.”
She ended her report by saying, “In the past year in this country, three convicted killers have been exonerated of the crimes for which they were imprisoned, because of either new evidence or the confession
of the real culprit. Molly Lasch’s attorney has vowed a ceaseless fight to overturn or vacate her plea, as well as to prove that she is innocent of the charge of murder filed against her in the death of Annamarie Scalli.”
With a sigh of relief, Fran unhooked her microphone and got up. She had reached the station barely in time to go into makeup and put on a fresh jacket. She hadn’t had time to do more than wave to Tim as she rushed onto the set. A commercial was running between their spots, and he called out to her, “Fran, wait for me. I want to talk to you.”
On her way into the studio she had dropped the magazines Molly gave her on her desk, and she hadn’t done more than merely glimpse at the material on Lasch and Whitehall that she’d requested from the research department. Now, while she waited for Tim, she reached for it, eager to get started.
Skimming through the research material, she could see that the pages on both Calvin Whitehall and Dr. Gary Lasch seemed detailed and extremely thorough. It looks like research has pulled out all the stops in this one, she thought gratefully. I have a hunch I’ll be doing a lot of reading tonight.
“You must plan to do a lot of reading.”
Fran looked up. Tim was at the door. “Make a wish fast,” she told him. “You just said exactly what I was thinking, and when that happens, you get whatever you wish for.”
“I never heard that one, but anyhow it’s easy to do. Here goes: I wish you’d have a hamburger with me. How’s that?” he asked with a laugh. “I was on the phone with my mother earlier today, and when I told her I let you pay for dinner the other night, she yelled at me. She said she doesn’t agree with this business of men and women splitting checks unless it’s a business appointment or a case of dire financial necessity. She said that with my paycheck and total lack of responsibilities, I shouldn’t be so chintzy.” He grinned. “I think she was right.”
“I’m not sure about that, but yes, I’d love to have a hamburger—if you don’t mind making it a fast one.” Fran pointed to the stack of files and magazines. “I need to start working my way through all this stuff tonight.”
“I was sorry to hear about the parole board emergency session. That’s not good for Molly, is it?”
“No, it isn’t.”
“How’s the investigation going?”
Fran hesitated. “There’s something terribly wrong, even bizarre, going on at Lasch Hospital, but in all fairness, since I don’t have a shred of proof yet, I shouldn’t even talk about it.”
“Maybe you should take a break from it anyhow,” Tim suggested. “P.J.’s okay with you?”
“You bet, and I’ll be home in two minutes from there.”
With an easy motion, Tim picked up the magazines and research data from her desk. “You want all this stuff?”
“Yes. I’ll have the whole weekend to wade through it.”
“Sounds like fun. Let’s go.”
Over hamburgers at P. J. Clarke’s they discussed baseball—the start of spring training and the strengths and weaknesses of the various players and teams. “I’d better be careful. You could take over the sports desk,” Tim told her as he paid the check.
“I might do a better job there than I’m doing right now,” Fran responded wryly.
Tim insisted on seeing Fran to her apartment. “I’m not going to let you carry all this stuff,” he said. “You’d break your arm. But I assure you I’ll get right out.”
As they left the elevator on her floor he mentioned the deaths of Natasha and Barbara Colbert. “I jog in the morning,” he said. “And today, while I was enjoying a run, I started thinking how Tasha Colbert went out one morning to jog, just like I do, and she tripped and fell and never had another thought.”
Tripped on a loose shoelace? Fran thought as she turned her key in the lock and pushed the door open. She switched on the light.
“Where do you want these?” Tim asked.
“Right on that table, please.”
“Sure.” He laid them down and turned to go. “I guess the reason Tasha Colbert was on my mind so much was that she went into the hospital while my grandmother was there.”
“She did?”
Tim was stepping into the hall. “Yes. I was visiting when she was brought in one afternoon in cardiac arrest. She was only two rooms away from Gran. Gran died the next day.” He was silent for a moment, then he shrugged. “Oh, well. Goodnight Fran. You look tired. Don’t work too late.” He turned and headed down the hall too soon to see the stricken look on Fran’s face.
She closed the door and leaned against it. With every fiber of her being, she was sure that Tim’s grandmother must have been the elderly woman Annamarie Scalli had referred to, the one with a heart condition who was the original intended recipient of the experimental drug that destroyed Tasha Colbert and, a night later, was also given to her.
76
“Molly, before I leave I’m going to give you a sedative that will ensure that you sleep tonight,” Dr. Daniels told Molly.
“If you like, Doctor,” Molly said indifferently.
They were in the family room. “I’ll get you a glass of water,” Dr. Daniels said. He stood to go into the kitchen.
Molly thought of the bottle of sleeping pills she’d left out on the counter there. “The bar sink is closer, Doctor,” she said quickly.
She knew he was watching her closely as she put the pill in her mouth and swallowed it with water. “I’m really all right,” she said, as she put the glass down.
“You’ll be more all right after you have a good sleep. You go right upstairs to bed.”
“I will.” She walked with him to the front door. “It’s past nine. I’m sorry. I certainly have ruined your evenings this week, haven’t I?”
“You haven’t ruined anything. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”
“Thank you.”
“Remember. Straight upstairs to bed, Molly. You’re going to start feeling groggy pretty soon.”
Molly waited until she was sure he was driving away before she double locked the door and stepped on the foot bolt. This time the sound it made—something between a click and a snap—seemed to be familiar and nonthreatening.
I made it all up, she thought dully—that sound, the feeling that someone was in the house that night. I remember it that way because that’s the way I wanted it to be.
Had she turned off all the lights in the study? She couldn’t remember. The door to the study was closed. She opened it and leaned inside, reaching for the light switch. As light flooded the room, something caught her eye. Something was moving outside the front window. Was someone out there? Yes. In the glow from the study light, she could see Wally Barry, standing on the lawn, just a few feet from the window, staring in at her. With a startled cry she turned away.
And suddenly the study was different. It was paneled again, as it had been . . . before . . . And Gary was there, his back to her, at his desk—he was slumped over, his head soaked in blood.
Blood was running down from the deep gash in his head, soaking his back, pooling on the desk, dripping onto the floor.
Molly tried to scream but could not. She turned back and looked beseechingly to Wally for help, but he was gone. The blood was on her hands, her face, her clothes.
Dazed by terror, she staggered out of the room, up the stairs, and fell into bed.
When she awoke twelve hours later, still groggy from the sleeping pill, she knew that the vivid, bloody horror she had remembered was only part of the unendurable nightmare that her life had become.
77
Fran knew that if she tried to read in bed, she would fall asleep, so she opted instead to change into a pair of comfortable old pajamas and then settled in her leather chair, her feet on the hassock.
She tackled Gary Lasch’s file first. It reads like a slightly sophisticated Beaver Cleaver profile, she thought. He attended a good prep school and a good college, but not Ivy League. Couldn’t make one, I’ll bet, she told herself. He finished college with a B minus average, then went t
o Meridian Medical School in Colorado. After that he joined his father’s practice. Soon thereafter his father died, and Gary was made head of the hospital.
And here we start to shine, Fran noticed. Engagement to socialite Molly Carpenter. More and more articles about Lasch Hospital and its charismatic CEO. Then stories about Gary and his partner, Peter Black, starting Remington HMO with financier Calvin Whitehall.
Next came his dazzling wedding to Molly. Then clippings about the beautiful couple—Gary and Molly at benefits and charity balls and other top-drawer social events.
Interspersed there were more items about the hospital and the HMO, including pieces about Gary being invited to make speeches at medical conventions. Fran read some of them. The usual fluff, she decided, putting them to one side.
Everything else in the Gary Lasch folder had to do with his death. Reams of newspaper articles about the murder, the trial, Molly.
Reluctantly, Fran decided that there was absolutely nothing in all the material on Gary Lasch to indicate that he was anything more than an average doctor who was smart enough to marry well and to get in on the health maintenance organization circus. Until he was murdered, of course.
Well, on to the almighty Calvin Whitehall, Fran told herself with a sigh. Forty minutes later, her eyes burning with fatigue, she said aloud, “Now this guy is a horse of a different color. I think the proper adjective to describe him would be ‘ruthless,’ not ‘almighty.’ It’s a miracle he’s stayed out of jail.”
The list of lawsuits filed against Cal Whitehall over the years took up pages. The notations showed that a few were settled “for an undisclosed sum,” while most were dismissed or resulted in a favorable verdict for Whitehall.
There were many recent articles about the proposed acquisition by Remington Health Management of smaller HMOs, and there was mention as well of the potential for a hostile takeover of Remington itself.
That merger deal really is in trouble, Fran reflected, as she continued to read. Whitehall has big bucks, but according to these articles, some of the biggest stockholders of the competing American National are powerhouses too. From what I see here, they all believe that the future of medicine in this country calls for the guidance of American National’s president, the former surgeon general. If these quotes are accurate, they’re willing to make sure that happens.