We'll Meet Again

  Pedro covered the mouthpiece and whispered, “Excuse me, Doctor, but I thought you might want to take this call. It is Mrs. Lasch. Mrs. Molly Lasch.”

  Peter Black paused, then downed his glass of wine in a single gulp—allowing himself none of the customary time to savor the delicate taste—and reached for the phone. His hand was trembling.

  13

  Molly had given Fran a list of people she might want to begin interviewing. First on the list was Gary’s partner, Dr. Peter Black. “He never said a word to me after Gary’s death,” she’d told her.

  Then Jenna Whitehall: “You’ll remember her from Cranden, Fran.”

  Jenna’s husband, Cal: “When they needed a cash reserve to start Remington, Cal arranged the financing,” she explained.

  Molly’s lawyer, Philip Matthews: “Everyone thinks he was wonderful because he got me a light sentence and then fought for early parole. I’d like him better if I thought he had even an ounce of doubt about my guilt,” she’d said.

  Edna Barry: “Everything was in perfect order when I got home yesterday. It was almost as though the past five and a half years hadn’t even happened.”

  Fran had asked Molly to speak to each of them and let them know she would be calling. But when Edna Barry looked in on her before she left, Molly did not feel like mentioning it to her.

  Eventually Molly had gone into the kitchen and looked in the refrigerator. She saw that Mrs. Barry had stopped at the delicatessen on her way in. The rye bread with caraway seeds, Virginia ham, and Swiss cheese she had requested were there. She took them out and with careful pleasure made a sandwich, then opened the refrigerator again and found the spicy mustard she loved.

  And a pickle, she thought. I haven’t wanted to eat a pickle in years. Smiling unconsciously, she brought the plate to the table, made a cup of tea, then looked around for the local newspaper she had not bothered to open earlier.

  She flinched when she saw a picture of herself on the front page. The caption read “Molly Carpenter Lasch released after five and a half years in prison.” The account rehashed the details of Gary’s death, the plea bargain, and her declaration of innocence at the prison gate.

  Hardest to read was the coverage given to the background of her family. The article included a profile of her grandparents, longtime pillars of Greenwich and Palm Beach society, listing their achievements and charities. It also discussed her father’s sterling business career, Gary’s father’s distinguished history in medicine, and the model health maintenance organization Gary had cofounded with Dr. Peter Black.

  All of them good people, their accomplishments impressive, but everything is turned into juicy gossip because of me, Molly thought. No longer hungry, she pushed away the sandwich. As it had earlier in the day, the feeling of fatigue and sleepiness was overwhelming her. The psychiatrist at the prison had treated her for depression and had urged her to see the doctor who had treated her while she was awaiting trial.

  “You told me you liked Dr. Daniels, Molly. You said you felt comfortable with him because he believed you when you said you had no memory of Gary’s death. Remember, extreme fatigue can be a sign of depression.”

  As Molly rubbed her forehead in an effort to ward off the beginning of a headache, she remembered that she liked Dr. Daniels very much and that she should have included his name with those she had given Fran. Maybe she would try to get an appointment with him. More important, she’d phone and tell him that if Fran Simmons called, he had permission to speak freely about her.

  Molly got up from the table, dumped the rest of the sandwich in the compactor, and started upstairs, carrying her tea. The ringer on the phone was turned off, but she decided she should check the answering machine for messages.

  She now had a new unlisted phone number, so only a few people knew it. They included her parents, Philip Matthews, and Jenna. Jenna had called twice. “Moll, I don’t care what you say, I’m coming over tonight,” her message said. “I’m bringing dinner over at eight.”

  Once she’s here, I’ll be glad to see her, Molly acknowledged to herself as she started up the stairs again. In the bedroom, she finished the tea, kicked off her shoes, lay down on top of the coverlet, and pulled it around her. She fell asleep immediately.

  Her dreams were fragmented. In them, she was in the house. She was trying to talk to Gary, but he wouldn’t acknowledge her. Then there was a sound—what was it? If she could only recognize it, then everything would be clear. That sound. That sound. What was it?

  * * *

  She woke at 6:30 to find tears running down her cheeks. Maybe it’s a good sign, she thought. This morning, when she spoke to Fran, had been the first time she had cried since that week she spent on Cape Cod nearly six years ago, when she’d done nothing except cry. When she first learned that Gary was dead, it was as though something inside her dried up, became permanently arid. From that day to this one, she had been tearless.

  Reluctantly she got up, splashed water on her face, brushed her hair, and changed from the jeans and cotton shirt to a beige sweater and slacks. As an afterthought she put on earrings and light makeup. When Jenna had visited her in prison, she had prodded her to wear makeup in the visiting room. “Best foot forward, Moll; remember our motto.”

  Downstairs again, Molly lit the gas fire in the family room off the kitchen. Family room for the family of one, she thought. On the evenings they had been home, Gary and she had loved watching old movies together. His collection of classic films still filled the shelves.

  She thought of the people she had to call to ask them to cooperate with Fran Simmons. She was unsure of one of them. She did not want to call Peter Black in his office, but she did want him to agree to talk to Fran, so she decided to call him at home. And rather than putting it off, she’d do it tonight. No, she’d do it right now.

  She had scarcely thought of Pedro in nearly six years, but when she heard his voice, memories of the small dinner parties Peter used to have came rushing back. Often they included just the six of them—Jenna and Cal, Peter and his current wife or date, herself and Gary.

  She didn’t blame Peter for wanting nothing to do with her. She knew she probably would feel that way if someone hurt Jenna. Old friend, best friend. That was the litany they used to singsong to each other.

  She half expected to be told that Peter was not available and was surprised when he did take her call. Hesitantly, then quickly, Molly said what she needed to say: “Tomorrow, Fran Simmons from NAF-TV is going to call to make an appointment with you. She’s doing a piece for the True Crime program, on Gary’s death. I don’t care what you say about me, Peter, but please see her. I’d better warn you that Fran said it would be much better if she had your cooperation, but if not, she’d find a way to work around you.”

  She waited. After a long pause, Peter Black said quietly, “I would think you would have the decency to leave well enough alone, Molly.” His voice was tight, though his words were ever so slightly slurred. “Don’t you think Gary’s reputation deserves better than to have the Annamarie Scalli story revived? You paid a very small price for what you did. I warn you, you will be the ultimate loser if a cheap television show reenacts your crime for a national audience . . .”

  The click of the receiver as he hung up was almost drowned out by the ringing of the front doorbell.

  For the next two hours, Molly felt as though life was almost normal again. Jenna had brought not only dinner but a bottle of Cal’s best Montrachet. They sipped wine in the family room, then ate their meal at the coffee table there. Jenna dominated the conversation as she mapped out the plans she had made for her friend. Molly was to come in to New York, spend a few days in the apartment, go shopping and to the hot new salon Jenna had discovered, where she could have a complete one-stop makeover. “Hair, face, nails, the bod, the works,” Jenna said triumphantly. “I’ve already planned to take time off to be with you.” She grinned at Molly. “Tell the truth. I look pretty good, don’t you think?”

&n
bsp; “You’re a walking ad for whatever regimen you’re on,” Molly agreed. “At some point I’ll take you up on that. But for now, no.”

  She put down her demitasse cup. “Jen, Fran Simmons was here today. You probably remember her. She went to Cranden with us.”

  “Her father shot himself, right? He was the guy who embezzled all that money from the library.”

  “That’s right. She’s an investigative reporter now, for NAF-TV. She’s going to do a show about Gary’s death for the network’s True Crime program.”

  Jenna Whitehall did not attempt to hide her dismay: “Molly, no!”

  Molly shrugged. “I didn’t expect even you to understand, so I know you won’t understand this next thing either. Jenna, I need to see Annamarie Scalli. Do you know where she is?”

  “Molly, you’re crazy! Why in God’s name would you want to see that woman? When you think . . .” Jenna’s voice trailed off.

  “When you think that if she hadn’t fooled around with my husband, he might still be alive today? That’s what you mean—right? I agree, but I simply must see her. Does she still live in town?”

  “I haven’t a clue where she is. From what I understand, she accepted that settlement from Gary, got out of town, and hasn’t been heard from since. She would have been called as a witness at the trial, but that wasn’t necessary after the plea bargain.”

  “Jen, I want you to ask Cal to get his people onto finding her. We all know Cal can do anything, or at least get someone to do it for him.”

  Cal’s “can do” attitude had been a kind of running joke between them for years. Jenna, however, didn’t laugh.

  “I’d rather not,” she said, her voice suddenly strained.

  Molly thought she understood the reason for Jenna’s reluctance. “Jenna, you’ve got to understand something. I’ve paid the price for Gary’s death, whether I was responsible for it or not. I believe that at this point I have earned the right to know what really happened that night and why. I need to try to understand my own actions and reactions. Maybe after that I’ll be able to go on. I have to try to put together for myself something that will resemble a normal life.”

  Molly got up, went into the kitchen, and returned with the morning paper. “Maybe you’ve seen this. It’s the kind of thing that will follow me throughout my life.”

  “I’ve seen it.” Jenna pushed the paper aside and took Molly’s hands. “Molly, a hospital, like a person, can lose its reputation because of a scandal. All the stories about Gary’s death, including disclosure of his affair with a young nurse, followed by your trial, hurt Lasch Hospital badly. It’s doing a good job for the community, and Remington Health Management is flourishing at a time when a lot of other HMOs are in deep trouble. Please, for your sake, for the sake of the hospital, call off Fran Simmons and forget about finding Annamarie Scalli.”

  Molly shook her head.

  “Just consider it, Molly,” Jenna urged. “Look, you know I’ll back you up no matter what, but please at least consider Plan A.”

  “We go in to the city, and I get a makeover. Right?”

  Jenna smiled. “You bet.” She stood. “Okay, I’d better be on my way. Cal will be looking for me.”

  Arm in arm they walked to the front door. With her hand on the knob, Jenna hesitated, then said, “Sometimes I wish we could go back to Cranden and start all over, Moll. Life was a lot easier then. Cal is different from you and me. He doesn’t play by the same rules. Anything or anyone that causes him to lose money becomes the enemy.”

  “Including me?” Molly asked.

  “I’m afraid so.” Jenna opened the door. “Love you, Molly. Be sure to lock up and turn the security system on.”

  14

  Tim Mason, the thirty-six-year-old sports announcer for NAF-TV, had been on vacation when Fran first started at the network. Raised in Greenwich, he had lived there briefly after college, while he worked for a year as a cub reporter for the Greenwich Time. It was at that point that he realized that the sports pages were where he wanted to be, and so he switched to a sports-reporter job at a newspaper in upstate New York.

  Broadcasting for the local station there followed a year later, and over the next dozen years, a progression of stepping-stone jobs brought him to his big break, the sports desk at NAF. In the tristate area, its hour-long evening news program was already making impressive dents in the ratings of the three major networks, and Tim Mason soon became known as the best of the best of the new generation of sports commentators.

  Rangy and with uneven features that gave him a boyish appeal, affable and easygoing by nature, Tim turned into a type-A personality when observing or discussing a sports event, which created a bond with ardent sports fans everywhere.

  When he dropped into Gus Brandt’s office the afternoon he came back from vacation, he met Fran Simmons for the first time. She still had her coat on and was filling Gus in on her visit that morning with Molly Lasch.

  I know her, Tim thought, but from where?

  His prodigious memory bank instantly furnished the facts he was seeking. He had started working at the Time in Greenwich the same summer that Fran Simmons’s father, Frank Simmons, faced with the disclosure that he had embezzled library funds, shot himself. The gossip in Greenwich was that he’d been a social-climbing bootlicker who used the money trying to make a killing in the market. The scandal died down quickly, however, once Simmons’s wife and daughter moved out of Greenwich almost immediately thereafter.

  Looking at the attractive woman she had become, Tim was sure Fran wouldn’t know him from a hole in the ground, as his grandmother used to put it, but he found himself curious as to what kind of person she’d turned out to be. Working as investigative reporter on the Molly Lasch case in Greenwich wasn’t exactly a job he would have chosen if he had been in her shoes. But of course he wasn’t, and he had no idea how Fran Simmons felt about her father’s suicide.

  That louse left his wife and teenage daughter to face the music, Tim thought. Simmons took the coward’s way out. Tim was confident it was not something he would have done. If he had been in that situation, he’d have gotten his wife and daughter out of town, then faced the consequences of his actions himself.

  He’d covered the funeral for the Time, and he remembered seeing Fran and her mother coming out of the church after the Mass. She’d been a kid then, with downcast eyes and long hair that fell over her face. Now Fran Simmons was extremely attractive, and he found that she had a direct handshake, a warm smile, and a way of looking straight into his eyes. He knew she couldn’t read his thoughts, couldn’t know that he’d been mentally rehashing the scandal surrounding her father, but for the brief moment of the handshake, Tim felt guilty and awkward.

  He apologized for bursting in on them. “Usually Gus is by himself at this hour, trying to decide what will go wrong with the newscast.” He turned to go, but Fran stopped him.

  “Gus told me that your family lived in Greenwich and that you grew up there,” she said. “Did you know the Lasches?”

  In other words, Tim thought, she’s saying I know you know who I am and all about my father, so let’s skip that. “Dr. Lasch, I mean Gary’s father, was our family doctor,” he said. “A nice man and a good physician.”

  “How about Gary?” Fran asked swiftly.

  Tim’s eyes hardened. “A dedicated doctor,” he said flatly. “He took wonderful care of my grandmother before she died at Lasch Hospital. That was only weeks before his own death.”

  Tim did not add that when his grandmother had been ill, the special-duty nurse who frequently attended her was Annamarie Scalli.

  Annamarie, a pretty young woman, had been a terrific nurse and a nice, if rather unsophisticated, kid, he remembered. Gran had been crazy about her. In fact, Annamarie had been in the room with his grandmother when she died. By the time I got there, Tim thought, Gran was gone, and Annamarie was sitting by her bed, crying. How many nurses would react like that? he wondered.

  “I’ve got to see w
hat’s going on at my desk,” he announced. “Talk to you later, Gus. Nice to meet you, Fran.” With a wave he left the office and headed down the corridor. He did not think it fair to tell Fran how totally his opinion of Gary Lasch had changed after he heard about his involvement with Annamarie Scalli.

  She’d been only a kid, Tim thought angrily, and in a way she was not unlike Fran Simmons, the victim of someone else’s selfishness. She’d been forced to give up her job and move out of town. The murder trial brought national attention, and for a time she was in every gossip column.

  He wondered where Annamarie was now and worried briefly if Fran Simmons’s investigation would hurt the new life she might have built for herself.

  15

  Annamarie Scalli walked briskly down the block to the modest home in Yonkers where she began her daily rounds of home care for the elderly. After more than five years of working for the visiting nurse service, she had made her peace with life, at least to a degree. She no longer missed the hospital nursing she once had loved. She no longer looked every day at the pictures of the child she had borne. After five years it had been agreed that the adoptive parents were no longer required to send her an annual picture. It had been months since she received the last photo of the little boy who was growing up to be the image of his father, Gary Lasch.

  She used her mother’s maiden name now, Sangelo. Her body had filled out and, like her mother and sister, she was now a size 14. The dark hair that used to bounce on her shoulders was a trim, curly cap around her heart-shaped face. At twenty-nine, she looked to be what she in fact was—competent, practical, kindhearted. Nothing in her appearance resembled the curvaceous “other woman” in the Dr. Gary Lasch murder case.