The upstairs hall was gloomy and dimly lit, but when Adrian Lowe opened the door to his laboratory, it was like stepping into another world. Knowing little about research laboratories, Fran could still see that this one appeared to be the epitome of technical perfection.
The room was not large, but the limited space was more than made up for by the careful arrangement of equipment so that every inch was put to practical use. In addition to the latest in computer technology, Fran recognized some of the equipment she had seen in her own, very high-priced doctor’s office. There was also a rather substantial oxygen tank, with valves and tubes attached. Many of the machines appeared to be geared to testing chemicals, with others more suited to testing live subjects. Rats, I hope, Fran said to herself with a sinking feeling. Most of the lab equipment meant nothing to her, but what she did find impressive was the extreme cleanliness and orderliness of the place. It is both impressive and absolutely terrifying, she thought as she advanced into the room.
Adrian Lowe’s face glowed with pride. “Miss Simmons, my former student Gary Lasch brought me here after I had been hounded out of medicine. He believed in me and my research and was devoted to lending me the support I needed to carry out my tests and experiments. Then he sent for Peter Black, another of my former students, and one who had been Gary’s classmate. That proved not to be the wisest move, in retrospect. Possibly because of his problem with alcohol, Black has turned out to be a dangerous coward. He has failed me on a number of occasions, although most recently he has helped to hand me the greatest achievement of my career. In addition, there is Calvin Whitehall, who was kind enough to arrange our meeting, and who has been an ardent supporter of my research, both financially and philosophically.”
“Calvin Whitehall did what?” Fran asked, a shiver of alarm running down her back.
Adrian Lowe looked puzzled. “Why, he arranged this meeting, of course. He suggested you would be the appropriate media contact. He made the arrangements with you and verified with me that you would be coming.”
Fran chose her next words carefully: “Exactly what did Mr. Whitehall tell you I would do for you, Doctor?”
“My dear, you are here because you are going to produce a thirty-minute interview with me that will then allow me to share my achievements with the world. The members of the medical establishment will continue to excoriate me. But even they over time, as well as the general public, will come to embrace the wisdom of my philosophy and the genius of my research. And you, Miss Simmons, will lead the way. You are going to publicize that program in advance and place it on your own prestigious network.”
Fran stood silent for a moment, both dumbfounded and horrified by what she had heard. “Dr. Lowe, you do realize that you will be exposing yourself, and Dr. Black, and Calvin Whitehall to possible criminal prosecution?”
He bristled. “Of course I do. Calvin has willingly accepted that as a necessary part of our important mission.”
Oh dear God, Fran thought, he’s become dangerous to them. And so have I. This laboratory is also dangerous to them. They’ve got to get rid of it—and us. I’ve walked into a trap.
“Doctor,” she said, trying to sound calmer than she felt, “we’ve got to get out of here. Immediately. We’ve both been set up. Calvin Whitehall would never let you go public with all this, especially on television. You must realize that!”
“I don’t understand . . .” the doctor responded, an almost childlike confusion crossing his face.
“Trust me. Please!”
Dr. Lowe was standing next to her by the laboratory’s center island, his hands on the Formica surface. “Miss Simmons, you’re not making sense. Mr. Whitehall—”
Fran grabbed his hand. “Doctor, it isn’t safe here. We have to get out.”
She heard a faint noise and felt a sharp draft. At the far end of the room the window was being raised. “Look!” she screamed pointing to the shadowy figure, barely visible against the night.
She saw the flicker of a tiny flame, watched as an arm lifted it, then seemed to pull back. Suddenly she realized what was happening. Whoever was outside that window was going to throw a firebomb into the room. He was going to blow up the laboratory—and both of them with it.
Doctor Lowe pulled his hand from her tight grasp. Fran knew it was useless to run, but she also knew she had to try. “Doctor, please.”
But in a lightning movement he reached below the counter of the island, pulled out a shotgun, racked back the slide with a loud, ominous click, then aimed and fired. The noise deafened her. She saw the arm holding the flame disappear, then heard the thud of a body. An instant later flames shot up from the porch.
Dr. Lowe pulled a fire extinguisher off the wall and thrust it at her. Then he ran to a wall safe, opened it quickly, and frantically began to search through it.
Fran leaned out the window. Flames were licking at the shoes of their would-be assailant, who lay on the porch. He was groaning and clutching at his shoulder, trying to stem the gushing flow of blood. Fran pressed down with her finger, and a stream of foam sprouted from the extinguisher, putting out the flames directly around him.
But the fire had spread already to the railing of the porch and was seconds away from reaching the steps. Some of the flaming liquid from the firebomb had also flowed between the floorboards of the porch, and she could see flames already licking underneath. It was clear to Fran that no extinguisher could save this house. She knew also that if she opened the door to the porch, the flames would sweep through the laboratory and engulf the oxygen tank.
“Doctor, get out,” she shrieked. He nodded, and with his arms full of files, he ran out of the laboratory and down the hall. She could hear the clatter of his feet on the stairs as he descended.
She looked back out onto the porch. There was only one way to try to save the life of the injured man, which she was determined to try to do. She could not leave him to be blown up when the laboratory went. Holding the extinguisher, Fran squeezed herself out of the narrow window and onto the small porch. The flames had returned, inching closer to the wounded man and threatening soon to climb the house’s outside wall. Spraying foam from the fire extinguisher in the space between the window and the stairs, she created a temporary path. The would-be killer was lying almost at the top of the steps. Fran set the extinguisher down, put her hands under the man’s right shoulder, and with all her strength, she lifted and rolled him. For an instant he teetered at the top step, then in an end-over-end motion that brought agonized cries from his lips, he tumbled down the stairs.
Fran tried to straighten up but lost her balance in the slippery foam and fell, her feet going out from under her. Her head struck the top step, her shoulder banged against the sharp edge of the next one, her ankle twisted as she finally dropped to the ground.
Dazed, she managed to scramble to her feet just as Dr. Lowe came around the side of the house. “Grab him,” she shouted. “Help me to get him clear before the whole place explodes.”
Their assailant had fainted during his tumble, and was now a deadweight. With superhuman strength, Fran assumed most of the burden but still managed, with Dr. Lowe’s help, to pull Lou Knox nearly twenty feet before the explosion Calvin Whitehall had planned so carefully took place.
They headed for safety as flames leaped skyward and debris rained around them.
85
After Fran left, Molly went upstairs and into the bathroom, where she stood in front of the mirror, studying her face. It looked unfamiliar, as if she were looking at a stranger—one she didn’t particularly care to meet. “You used to be Molly Carpenter, didn’t you?” she asked her mirror image. “Molly Carpenter was a very lucky person, privileged even. Well, guess what? She’s not here anymore, and you can’t go back to pretending to be her. You can only go back to being a number who lives in a cell block. Doesn’t sound like a lot of fun, does it? And maybe it’s not such a great idea.”
She turned on the taps to fill the Jacuzzi, tossed in scented bath s
alts, and walked into the bedroom.
Jenna had said she was going to stop at a cocktail party before coming over. Her housekeeper would deliver dinner. Jenna will look gorgeous, Molly thought. Then she made a decision. I’ll surprise her—tonight I’m going to have my one last fling at being Molly Carpenter.
An hour later, her hair washed and shining, makeup camouflaging the circles under her eyes, dressed in pale green silk slacks and a matching cowlneck shirt, Molly waited for Jenna to arrive.
She got there at 7:30, looking every bit as beautiful as Molly had expected. “I’m late,” she wailed. “I was at the Hodges’. They’re clients of the firm. All the big guns came from New York, so I just couldn’t get away any faster.”
“I wasn’t going anywhere,” Molly said quietly.
Jenna stood back and looked at her. “Molly, you look terrific. Molly, you’re wonderful!”
Molly shrugged. “I don’t know about that. Hey, does your husband expect us to get blotto? When dinner arrived, it was accompanied by three bottles of that great wine he brought the other night.”
Jenna laughed. “That’s Cal. If one bottle would be a pleasant remembrance, three bottles will remind you what an important guy he is. Not the worst trait, I’d say.”
“Not at all,” Molly agreed.
“Let’s test it,” Jenna suggested. “Let’s get a buzz on. Let’s pretend that we’re still the girls who set the tone for this town.”
“We did, didn’t we?” Molly thought. I’m glad I got dressed up. It may be my last hurrah, but it will be fun. I know what I have to do tonight. No more will I be the prisoner in the dock. Fran had a nerve to come in here and make me feel guilty. What does she know about it? She remembered Fran’s words: “I am angry at my father . . . I’m furious . . . Believe in Philip. It may not even be important to you, but that guy loves you . . .”
They stood at the bar built into an alcove in the hallway that ran between the kitchen and family room. Jenna rummaged in the drawer, found the corkscrew, and opened a bottle of the wine. She scanned the shelves and selected two delicate crystal glasses. “My grandmother had these glasses as well,” she said. “Remember how our grandmothers’ wills read? You got this house and God knows what else. I got six glasses. That’s about what Gran was down to when she departed this earth.”
Jenna poured the wine, handed one glass to Molly and said, “Bottoms up.”
As they clinked glasses, Molly had the disturbing sensation that she was seeing something in Jenna’s eyes that she didn’t quite understand, something new and entirely unexpected.
She couldn’t imagine what it meant.
86
Lou should have been back by 9:30. As he did with everything, Calvin Whitehall had calculated the precise amount of time it would take for his henchman to go to West Redding, take care of business, and return. As he watched the clock in his library with intense awareness, he acknowledged to himself that unless Lou returned soon, something must have gone terribly wrong.
Too bad, because this was an all-or-nothing game. There was no such thing as cutting his losses if he failed.
By ten o’clock he had begun to consider how quickly he could distance himself from his aide-de-camp, Lou Knox.
At ten minutes after ten the front doorbell rang. He had told the housekeeper to take the night off, something he frequently did. It annoyed him to have household help around all the time. Cal understood that, of course, this feeling was the product of his origins. In most cases, no matter how much you achieve in life, humble beginnings trigger humble responses, he thought.
He headed down the hall toward the door, catching his reflection in a mirror along the way. What he saw was a barrel-chested man with a ruddy complexion and thinning hair. For some reason a remark he had heard about himself when he was fresh out of Yale flashed into his mind. The mother of one of his Yale friends had whispered, “Cal does not look comfortable in his Brooks Brothers suit.”
He was not surprised to find not one but four people at the door. The spokesman said, “Mr. Whitehall, I’m Detective Burroughs from the prosecutor’s office. You are under arrest for conspiracy to murder Frances Simmons and Dr. Adrian Lowe.”
Conspiracy to murder, he thought, letting the phrase echo in his mind.
It was worse than he expected.
Cal stared at Detective Burroughs, who cheerfully returned his gaze. “Mr. Whitehall, for your information, your coconspirator, Lou Knox, is singing like a bird from his hospital bed. And another piece of good news—Dr. Adrian Lowe is making a statement at the police station right now. It seems he can’t praise you enough for all you did to make his criminal research possible.”
87
At seven o’clock, Philip Matthews was parked in front of the Hilmers’ house, hoping that perhaps they’d get home early.
However, it was ten minutes past nine when they pulled into their driveway. “I’m so terribly sorry,” Arthur Hilmer said. “We knew there was a good chance that someone would be waiting for us here, but our granddaughter was in a play, and . . . well, you know how that is.”
Philip smiled. A nice man, he thought.
“Of course you don’t know how it is,” Hilmer corrected himself. “Our son is forty-four. You’re probably about that yourself, I’d say.”
Philip smiled. “Do you read tea leaves?” He then introduced himself, explaining briefly about Molly’s being in danger of having to return to prison, and how they could be important to him in defending her case.
They went into the house. Jane Hilmer, an attractive, well-preserved woman in her mid-sixties, offered Philip a soft drink, a glass of wine, or coffee, all of which he refused.
Arthur Hilmer obviously understood that he needed to get down to business. “We talked to Bobby Burke at the Sea Lamp today,” he said. “You could have bowled the two of us over when we heard what had happened there that Sunday night. We’d caught a movie at the mall and then gone to the diner for a sandwich.”
“We left first thing the next morning to visit our son in Toronto,” Jane Hilmer volunteered. “We only just got back last night. Today, we stopped at the diner for lunch on our way to Janie’s play, and that’s when we heard.” She looked at her husband.
“As I said, we were bowled over. We told Bobby that of course we wanted to help in any way we could. Bobby probably told you that we got a pretty good look at the guy in the sedan in the parking lot.”
“Yes, he did,” Philip confirmed. “I’m going to ask you to make a statement to the prosecutor’s office tomorrow morning, and then I want you both to get together with the police artist. A sketch of the man you saw in that sedan would be very helpful.”
“Glad to do that,” Arthur Hilmer said. “But I can be even more help to you, I think. You see, we paid particular attention to both of the women when they left. We’d seen the first woman go by our table, and it was obvious that she was upset. Then that classy-looking blond lady, who I now understand is Molly Lasch, left. She was crying. I heard her call out, ‘Annamarie!’ ”
Philip tensed. Don’t give me bad news, he silently begged.
“It was obvious the other woman didn’t hear her,” Arthur Hilmer said flatly. “There’s a little oval window over the cashier’s desk. From where I was sitting I could see out clearly into the parking lot, or at least to the part closest to the diner. The first woman must have crossed the lot over to the darker side—I couldn’t see her. But I’m certain I saw that second lady—I mean Molly Lasch—go straight to her car and take off. I can swear there’s no way in heaven or hell she could have walked across the parking lot to that Jeep and plunged a knife into the other woman, not in the time between when I saw her walk out the diner and when she drove away in her car.”
Philip didn’t know that his eyes had moistened until he brushed them with the back of his hand in a reflex gesture. “I can’t begin to find words,” he said, then stopped. He sprang up. “I’ll try to find the right words to thank you tomorrow,” he said. “
Right now, I’ve got to get to Greenwich.”
88
Dr. Peter Black stood at the window of his upstairs bedroom, a glass of scotch in his hand. He watched with blurring eyes as two unfamiliar cars pulled into his driveway. He did not need to observe the businesslike manner in which the four large men emerged and came walking up his cobblestone walk to know that it was all over. Cal the Mighty has finally crashed, he thought with a trace of humor. Unfortunately, he’s taking me with him.
Always have a contingency plan—that was one of Cal’s favorite mottoes. I wonder if he has one now? Peter Black thought. Truthfully, though, I never liked the guy, so I really don’t care.
He crossed to his bed and opened the drawer of his night table. Then he took out a leather case and extracted a hypodermic needle, already filled with fluid.
With a look of suddenly personal curiosity, he studied the instrument. How many times had he, with compassion in his face, given that injection, knowing that the trusting eyes gazing up at him would soon lose their focus and then would close forever?
According to Dr. Lowe, this drug not only left no trace in the blood, there was also no pain attached to its effect.
Pedro was knocking at the bedroom door, to announce the uninvited guests.
Dr. Peter Black stretched out on his bed. He took a final sip of scotch and then plunged the needle into his arm. He sighed as he briefly thought that at least Dr. Lowe had been right about there being no pain.
89
“I am all right,” Fran insisted. “I know there’s nothing broken.” She had refused to go to the hospital, and was taken instead in a squad car to the prosecutor’s office in Stamford as was Dr. Lowe. From there she’d called Gus Brandt at home, filling her boss in on the events of the evening. Using the phone hookup, he’d gotten Fran’s breaking story on the air, with file-tape footage providing the background.