As Time Goes By (20 page)

One time when she called the hospital to speak to him, she was told Dr. Clifton currently had no patients at the hospital.

Lisa had left a very good job in J&J Pharmaceuticals when she married Scott. Now realizing she had to think about her future, she called her former boss Susan Smith. She went straight to the point: “Susan, by any chance do you have a job open for me?”

“For you, of course I do. Your timing is perfect, but the opening I have will involve a lot of traveling every week.”

“The travel part won't be a problem.”

“How will Scott feel about that?”

“It's not going to matter very much. The marriage was a mistake and it's absolutely pointless to pretend it was anything other than that. I'm making an appointment with a divorce lawyer and filing immediately.”

“I'm so sorry. You seemed so happy.”

“ ‘Seemed' is the best word. It was so obvious almost from the beginning that Scott had a rush of emotion for me that wore out pretty quick.”

There was a long silence, and then Susan said, “If you're that definite about it, then I have a suggestion to make. How much of your personal stuff is in the house?”

“Besides my jewelry, quite a lot. Some paintings that my grandfather collected that I know have gone up considerably in value. He and my grandmother were antique buffs. I have two Persian carpets, boxes of china and silver, a seventeenth-century desk, tables and lamps and some original Shaker chairs that she bought.

“Scott bought his first wife out of the house and she left most of the original furniture here. For the last three years I've felt I've been living in another woman's house. He told me that we'd buy a different house and put this one on the market, but it never happened. I didn't want to mix my things in with the leftovers of the first Mrs. Clifton.”

“Well, take a piece of advice. Before you breathe a word to Scott about your plans, get everything you have out and put it in storage. Remember the old expression, ‘possession is nine-tenths of the law.' That house is in his name. You could go home one day to find he had the locks changed and it will be a long road to getting your stuff back.”

“Oh, God, I hadn't thought of that. In the next few days, I'll drive down and see if I can find an apartment or condo near Morristown again.”

When Lisa ended the call, she felt deflated and sad. She had so hoped that her marriage to Scott was going to be a happily-ever-after. He had been so ardent, so anxious to marry her. That emotion had been over in a year.

She knew it wasn't her fault. She had sympathy with him about his failing practice, put up with his restless sleeping habits and tried to be patient with the fact that he constantly demeaned her in public.

My self-esteem at the moment is zero minus, she thought. Thirty-seven years old and about to be divorced. She knew that any feeling she had for Scott had been destroyed by his attitude, and maybe there was a third Mrs. Clifton waiting in the wings.

Good luck to her, Lisa thought, as she got up from the chair where she had made the call to Susan. She was in the living room of the Ridgewood house. It was a large, pleasant room, but she was not into its stark monotone décor. Scott had said that his wife had redecorated the living room and dining room before she left. I bet the only reason she left the new stuff, Lisa thought, was because she realized it lacks any warmth. It would fit better in the waiting room at his office.

At the Ridgewood Country Club she had met a divorce lawyer and his wife. Even though Paul Stephenson and Scott were fellow members, she hoped he would take her case. The “prenup” was a simple one: “What's yours is yours; what's mine is mine.” She would not ask for or need alimony. Just get the paperwork done. She'd make the call later.

But now she felt a sudden urge to look at the beautiful desk, tables, lamps and paintings she had grown up with.

Feeling slightly better, she took the first step up the stairs to the attic.

A
t twelve thirty Alvirah and Willy were in the post office in Rowayton, Connecticut. Alvirah was so anxious not to miss Leslie Fallowfield that she insisted on arriving half an hour earlier than George Spahn had told them the usual time was for him to pick up his mail.

A worried-looking Spahn greeted them with barely a nod, and they busied themselves putting stamps on empty envelopes for bills that would not need to be paid for three weeks.

Of course all of those bills could have been paid by automatic deductions from one of their bank accounts, but Alvirah was having none of it. “Nobody takes money from our accounts except two people, Willy. One of them is you; the other is me.”

As one o'clock approached she kept glancing at the clock. “Oh Willy, suppose he doesn't show up?” she sighed.

“He will,” Willy replied encouragingly. And then on the stroke of one the door of the post office opened and a skinny man in his late sixties, with thinning hair, came in.

Alvirah did not need Spahn's hearty “Hello, Mr. Fallowfield” to know that the man she desperately wanted to meet had arrived. As she approached him, the thought crossed her mind that she should have let Willy stay in the car in case Fallowfield brushed her off and drove away.

Too late, she thought, as with a warm smile she walked over to Fallowfield, who was pulling mail from a box, and said, “Good afternoon, Mr. Fallowfield.”

Startled, Fallowfield spun around and faced her. “Who are you?”

“I'm Alvirah Meehan and my good friend is a young woman who is desperate to find her birth mother,” Alvirah said hurriedly. “Please talk to me. Cora Banks was the name of the midwife and you were the lawyer when she sold her house to the owner of Sam's Tile Factory sixteen years ago.”

Fallowfield looked incredulous. “You mean you found that out?”

“I am a good detective.”

“I guess you are.”

“Do you know where Cora Banks is now?”

Fallowfield looked around. The post office was becoming busy, with people on line to mail packages and others to buy stamps. “This is no place to talk,” he said. “There's a diner down the block.”

He closed and locked his post office box and shoved the small amount of envelopes into the pocket of his jacket.

“That's my husband, Willy,” Alvirah said as she pointed.

“Then obviously bring him along too.”

Five minutes later Fallowfield was sitting across from them in a booth in the nearby diner. After they ordered coffee Fallowfield said, “You told me that a child Cora delivered is looking for her birth mother.”

“Yes, she needs to find her,” Alvirah said vehemently. “I know that Cora Banks may not have kept records but we can only pray that she did.”

Fallowfield looked amused. “I can guarantee you that Cora kept records.”

It took Alvirah almost a minute to absorb the stunning impact of the words. Then she repeated, “She kept records?”

“Cora is a very smart woman. Obviously that kind of information has great potential value.”

“Do you know where Cora Banks is now?”

“Yes, I do.” Fallowfield took a sip of his coffee.

“Can you give me her address?”

“Of course. She's residing at the Danbury Prison for Women; however she is being released tomorrow.”

“Where will she go?”

“Oh, right here to my house in Rowayton. Cora has been my close friend for many years. I can arrange for you to meet her.”

Fallowfield reached into his breast pocket for a small pad. “Give me the specifics of the birth mother you are looking for; where it took place, the date of the birth, the sex of the child.”

The sex of the child, Alvirah thought. Does that mean she helped deliver more than one baby in one day? She made an effort to keep her face from showing any expression of shock. “Then can you arrange for us to meet Cora when she gets here?”

“Oh, of course I can,” Fallowfield said. “But you must be aware of something. Cora has been in prison for ten years. When she gets out she is going to have a lot of expenses. She is going to have to get health insurance. She is going to have to buy clothes and have some money in her pocket. She can never go back to her practice as a midwife. She lost her license and has a lifelong injunction against reapplying for it.”

Willy had been taking in the conversation. This is downright extortion, he thought. It was obvious that Alvirah did not share that concern. “How much?” he asked.

Fallowfield turned to look directly at him. “You are a man after my own heart,” he observed. “And I noted that you are driving a very expensive automobile. I would say that fifty thousand dollars cash, all in twenty-dollar bills, would make it worth Cora's time to go through her records.” Fallowfield's tone continued to be mild, as though they were discussing the weather.

“You'll have it,” Alvirah said emphatically.

“Excellent,” Fallowfield exclaimed. “And of course we all agree that this is a confidential transaction. The only ones who will ever know about it are the three of us and Cora.”

“Of course,” Alvirah said.

Fallowfield turned and stared at Willy. “Agreed,” Willy spat out as he rose from his chair.

Ten minutes later they were on the way home. “Honey, I'm trying to figure out how we're going to put together fifty thousand dollars cash without looking suspicious,” Willy began.

“It'll be all right,” Alvirah said briskly. “I believe I read that if you deposit or withdraw more than ten thousand dollars cash, the bank has to file a report. But after we won the lottery we put our money in ten different banks. We'll withdraw five thousand dollars from each of them.”

“Honey, we're careful about money. Do you really want to give that much to those jokers?”

“No way. But what I want more is to give Delaney this information. Who knows? Her birth mother may be looking for her too. I just hope I'm there when they meet.” With a happy sigh Alvirah settled back in her seat.

D
r. Mark Bevilacqua was the final witness for the prosecution. Delaney listened as the prosecutor initially questioned him about his academic training and experience. He testified that he was sixty-six years old, had graduated from Harvard Medical School, and for the past twenty years his practice had specialized in the diagnosis and treatment of Alzheimer's disease. At the prosecutor's request, the judge then accepted him as an expert in the area of Alzheimer's.

The judge then turned to the jury and explained that the evaluation of the expert's testimony was entirely up to them.

The prosecutor resumed his questions. Dr. Bevilacqua then explained to the jury the nature of Alzheimer's disease and the variations of its impact on those afflicted.

“Dr. Bevilacqua, under what circumstances did you first meet Dr. Ted Grant?”

“It was eight and a half years ago. Dr. Grant's wife had made an appointment with our office. She and Dr. Grant's physician partners were concerned about a series of behavioral changes they had observed in Dr. Grant and wanted to find out what was causing them.”

“And were you able to provide an answer?”

“Yes, after a series of tests my diagnosis was that Dr. Grant was suffering from early onset Alzheimer's disease.”

“Doctor, would you please explain what that means?”

“In the vast majority of cases, Alzheimer's disease is diagnosed in patients over sixty-five. Ten percent of Alzheimer's patients are diagnosed at an earlier age. These patients are classified as early onset. Dr. Grant was fifty-one years old when I diagnosed his condition.”

“Did you continue to see and treat Dr. Grant after his diagnosis?”

“Yes, I was his physician up to the time of his passing a year and a half ago.”

“Dr. Bevilacqua, how were you treating him?”

“There is no specific treatment that can actually stop the progression of Alzheimer's disease. I did prescribe various drug therapies that can help to delay the progression of symptoms such as sleeplessness, agitation, wandering, anxiety and depression. Treating these symptoms makes the patient with Alzheimer's more comfortable and usually makes their care easier.”