I'll Be Seeing You (11 page)

Helene Petrovic had been in charge of the cryopreserved embryos. Dozens upon dozens of test tubes, no bigger than half an index finger, each one containing a potentially viable human being. Mislabel even one of them and the wrong embryo might be implanted in a woman's womb, making her a host mother, but not the biological mother of a child.

Marge watched the Kaplan woman rush from the room followed by the reporter. She looked out the window. More news vans were pulling in. More reporters were attempting to question the women who had just left the reception area.

She saw the reporter from PCD Channel 3 getting out of a car. Meghan Collins. That was her name. She was the one who'd been planning to do the television special that Dr. Manning called off so abruptly . . .

Meghan was not sure if she really should be here, especially since her father's name was certain to come up in the course of the investigation into Helene Petrovic's credentials. As she left Phillip Carter's office she'd been beeped by the news desk and told that Steve, her cameraman, would meet her at the Manning Clinic. “Weicker okayed it,” she was assured.

She'd tried to reach Weicker earlier, but he was not yet in. She felt she had to speak to him about the possible conflict of interest. It was easier for the moment, however, to simply accept the assignment. The odds were that the lawyers for the clinic would not permit any interviews with Dr. Manning anyway.

She did not attempt to join the rest of the media in flinging questions to the departing clients. Instead she spotted Steve and motioned for him to follow her inside. She opened the door quietly. As she had hoped, Marge Walters was at her desk, speaking urgently into the phone. “We've got to cancel all of today's appointments,” she was insisting. “You'd better tell them in there that they've got to make some kind of statement. Otherwise the only thing the public is going to see is women bolting out of here.”

As the door closed behind Steve, Walters looked up. “I can't talk anymore,” she said hurriedly and clicked down the receiver.

Meghan did not speak until she was settled in the chair across from Walters' desk. The situation required tact and careful handling. She had learned not to fire questions at a defensive interviewee. “This is a pretty rough morning for you, Mrs. Walters,” she said soothingly.

She watched as the receptionist brushed a hand over her forehead. “You bet it is.”

The woman's tone was guarded, but Meghan sensed in her the same conflict she had noticed yesterday. She realized the need for discretion, but she was dying to talk to someone about all that had been going on. Marge Walters was a born gossip.

“I met Dr. Petrovic at the reunion,” Meghan said. “She seemed like a lovely person.”

“She was,” Walters agreed. “It's hard to believe she wasn't qualified for the job she was doing. But her early medical training was probably in Rumania. With all the changes in government over there, I'll bet anything they find out she had all the degrees she needed. I don't understand about New York Hospital saying she didn't train
there. I bet that's a mistake too. But finding that out may come too late. This bad publicity will ruin this place.”

“It could,” Meghan agreed. “Do you think that her quitting had something to do with Dr. Manning's decision to cancel our session yesterday?”

Walters looked at the camera Steve was holding.

Quickly Meghan added, “If you can tell me anything that will balance all this negative news I'd like to include it.”

Marge Walters made up her mind. She trusted Meghan Collins. “Then let me tell you that Helene Petrovic was one of the most wonderful, hardest working people I've ever met. No one was happier than she when an embryo was brought to term in its mother's womb. She loved every single embryo in that lab and used to insist on having the emergency generator tested regularly to be sure that in case of power failure the temperature would stay constant.”

Walters' eyes misted. “I remember Dr. Manning telling us at a staff meeting last year how he'd rushed to the clinic during that terrible snowstorm in December, when all the electricity went down, to make sure the emergency generator was working. Guess who arrived a minute behind him? Helene Petrovic. And she hated driving in snow or ice. It was a special fear of hers, yet she drove here in that storm. She was that dedicated.”

“You're telling me exactly what I felt when I interviewed her,” Meghan commented. “She seemed to be a very caring person. I could see it in the way she was interacting with the children during the picture session on Sunday.”

“I missed that. I had to go to a family wedding that day. Can you turn off the camera now?”

“Of course.” Meghan nodded to Steve.

Walters shook her head. “I wanted to be here. But my cousin Dodie finally married her boyfriend. They've only been living together for eight years. You should have heard my aunt. You'd think a nineteen-year-old out of convent school was the bride. I swear to God the night
before the wedding I bet she told Dodie how babies come to be born.”

Walters grimaced as the incongruity of her remark in this clinic occurred to her. “How most of them come to be born, I mean.”

“Is there any chance I can see Dr. Manning?” Meghan knew if there was a chance it was through this woman.

Walters shook her head. “Just between us, an assistant state attorney and some investigators are with him now.”

That wasn't surprising. Certainly they were looking into Helene Petrovic's abrupt departure from the clinic and asking questions about her personal life. “Did Helene have any particularly close friends here?”

“No. Not really. She was very nice but a little formal—you know what I mean. I thought maybe it was because she was from Rumania. Although when you think about it, the Gabor women came from there, and they've had more than their share of close friends, especially Zsa Zsa.”

“I'm quite sure the Gabors are Hungarian, not Rumanian. So Helene Petrovic didn't have any particular friends or an intimate relationship you're aware of?”

“The nearest to it was Dr. Williams. He used to be Dr. Manning's assistant, and I wondered if there wasn't a little something going on between him and Helene. I saw them at dinner one night when my husband and I went to a little out-of-the-way place. They didn't look happy when I stopped by their table to say hello. But that was just one time six years ago, right after she started working here. I have to say I kept my eye on them after that and they never acted at all special to each other.”

“Is Dr. Williams still here?”

“No. He was offered a job to open and run a new facility and he took it. It's the Franklin Center in Philadelphia. It has a wonderful reputation. Between us, Dr. Williams was a top-drawer manager. He put together the whole medical team here, and believe me, he did a terrific job.”

“Then he was the one who hired Petrovic?”

“Technically, but they always hire the top staff through one of those headhunter outfits that recruits and screens them for us. Even so, Dr. Williams worked here for about six months after Helene came on staff, and believe me, he'd have noticed if she seemed incompetent.”

“I'd like to talk with him, Mrs. Walters.”

“Please call me Marge. I wish you
would
talk to him. He'd tell you how wonderful Helene was in that lab.”

Meghan heard the front door opening. Walters looked up. “More cameras! Meghan, I'd better not say any more.”

Meghan stood up. “You've been a great help.”

Driving home, Meghan reflected that she would not give Dr. Williams the chance to put her off over the phone. She'd go to the Franklin Center in Philadelphia and try to see him. With luck she could persuade him to tape an interview for the in vitro feature.

What would he have to say about Helene Petrovic? Would he defend her, like Marge Walters? Or would he be outraged that Petrovic had managed to deceive him, as she had deceived all her other colleagues?

And, Meghan wondered, what would she learn at her other stop in the Philadelphia area? The house in Chestnut Hill, from which someone had notified her father of his mother's death.

V
ictor Orsini and Phillip Carter never socialized for lunch. Orsini knew that Carter considered him to be Edwin Collins' protégé. When the job at Collins and Car
ter had come up nearly seven years ago it had been between Orsini and another candidate. Orsini had been Ed Collins' choice. From the beginning his relationship with Carter was cordial, but never warm.

Today, however, after they had both ordered the baked sole and house salad, Orsini was in full sympathy with Carter's obvious distress. There had been reporters in the office and a dozen phone calls from the media asking how it was possible that Collins and Carter had not detected the lies in Helene Petrovic's curriculum vitae.

“I told them the simple truth,” Phillip Carter said as he drummed his fingers nervously on the tablecloth. “Ed always researched prospective candidates meticulously, and it was his case. It only adds fuel to the fire that Ed is missing and the police are openly saying they don't believe he died in the bridge accident.”

“Does Jackie remember anything about the Petrovic case?” Orsini asked.

“She'd just started working for us then. Her initials are on the letter, but she has no memory of it. Why should she? It was a usual glowing recommendation attached to the curriculum vitae. After he received it Dr. Manning had a meeting with Petrovic and hired her.”

Orsini said, “Of all the fields in which to have been caught verifying fraudulent references, medical research is about the worst.”

“Yes, it is,” Phillip agreed. “If any mistakes were made by Helene Petrovic and the Manning Clinic is sued, there's a damn good chance the clinic will sue us.”

“And win.”

Carter nodded glumly. “And win.” He paused. “Victor, you worked more directly with Ed than you did with me. When he called you from the car phone that night, he talked about wanting to meet with you in the morning. Was that all he said?”

“Yes, that's all. Why?”

“Damn it, Victor,” Phillip Carter snapped, “let's stop playing games! If Ed did manage to get over the bridge safely, do you have any inkling from that conversation
whether he might have been in the state of mind to use the accident as his opportunity to disappear?”

“Look, Phillip, he said he wanted to make sure I was in the office in the morning,” Orsini replied, his voice taking on an edge. “It was a lousy connection. That's all I can tell you.”

“I'm sorry. I keep looking for anything that might start to make sense.” Carter sighed. “Victor, I've been meaning to speak to you. Meghan is clearing out Ed's personal things from his office on Saturday. I want you to take that office as of Monday. We haven't had a great year but we can certainly refurbish it within reason.”

“Don't worry about that right now.”

They had little else to say to each other.

Orsini noticed that Phillip Carter did not hint that after the matter of Ed Collins' legal situation was somehow straightened out, he would offer Orsini a partnership. He knew that offer would never be made. For his part it was only a matter of weeks before the position he'd almost gotten on the Coast last year became available again. The guy they'd hired for the job didn't work out. This time Orsini was being offered a bigger salary, a vice presidency and stock options.

He wished that he could leave today. Pack up and fly out there right now. But under the circumstances that was impossible. There was something he wanted to find, something he wanted to check out at the office, and now that he could move into Ed's old office, the search might be easier.

B
ernie stopped at a diner on Route 7 just outside Danbury. He settled on a stool at the counter and ordered the deluxe hamburger, French fries and coffee. Increasingly content as he munched and swallowed, he reviewed with satisfaction the busy hours he'd spent since he left home this morning.

After the car was cleaned up, he'd purchased a chauffeur's hat and dark jacket at a secondhand store in lower Manhattan. He'd reasoned that outfit would give him a leg up on all the other gypsy cabs in New York. Then he'd headed for La Guardia Airport and stood near the baggage area, with the other chauffeurs waiting to make pickups.

He lucked out right away. Some guy about thirty or so came down the escalator and searched the name cards drivers were holding. There was no one waiting for him. Bernie could read the guy's mind. He'd probably hired a driver from one of the dirt-cheap services and was kicking himself. Most of the drivers from those places were guys who had just arrived in New York and spent their first six months on the job getting lost.

Bernie had approached the man, offered to take him into the city, warned that he didn't have a fancy limo but a nice clean car and bragged he was the best driver anyone could hire. He quoted a price of twenty bucks to drive the fellow to West Forty-eighth Street. He got him there in thirty-five minutes and received a ten-dollar tip. “You are a hell of a driver,” the man said as he paid.