Misfortune (39 page)

“If she didn’t tell you, how did you know about her relationship with Dr. Prescott?” Frances prompted.

“The second time we saw each other at the hospital, she was very polite, bordering on friendly. She thanked me. She said she liked Dr. Prescott.”

“Did she say anything else?”

“Not that I recall. It was a short conversation.”

“Did she tell you whether Dr. Prescott had put her on any medication?”

“No she didn’t.”

“Did he?”

“My only conversation with Fritz on the subject was when I called him to make sure that he had availability to take on new patients. I wasn’t about to recommend anyone to Marshall who wasn’t in a position to help. It would’ve been a waste of everyone’s time. At that point, I told him what I knew, which was very little.”

“So you never asked Dr. Prescott anything about Clio after you knew she was a patient?”

Henry’s disapproval was obvious. “That is between them. I would never interfere like that. It would be highly unethical for me to inquire, or for him to disclose.”

“Well, when Clio said the guy was helping her, did you ask her anything about it?”

“She said she liked him. I was pleased it had worked out. That’s all. Besides, it was quite clear to me later on that Clio regretted having said anything.”

“Why do you say that?”

“I can’t tell you exactly. All I know is that after our one conversation—which, by the way, was only in passing—Clio did an about-face. She hardly said a word to either me or Louise. When we were doing all the ridiculous stuff to try to get into Fair Lawn, all the parties and meetings with members, Clio actually let people introduce me to her without giving any indication that she already knew who I was. She couldn’t do the same to Louise, given the history of Richard’s friendship with Marshall, but she was very formal.”

“What do you know about Dr. Prescott?”

“I’ve known Fritz for years. He’s a very decent man and a good doctor, as I said. Both his parents were psychiatrists. He’s a bachelor and lives in Riverdale. I’m downtown from the hospital, so our paths rarely cross, socially, I mean. He and Louise get along, but he’s not particularly fond of children. He calls from time to time, primarily to discuss various drugs. He’s extremely interested in psychopharmacology.”

“Which is?”

“Managing mental illness through medication.”

“Why does he call you?”

“Many of the drugs in use today for psychiatric purposes are prescribed ‘off-label,’ meaning that they were developed and tested for a specific disease or condition but have been shown to be effective for other, often unrelated problems, including emotional illness. Many of these drugs have side effects, some significant. It’s a constant struggle to balance the potential psychiatric benefits and quality of life that may be gained against the physical ramifications. Fritz calls me because I’m a cardiologist. Many of the medications he considers have some effect on the heart, even if it’s simply an elevated heart rate.”

“So you give him advice about drugs?”

“I wouldn’t call it advice. We discuss certain risks. Knowing Fritz as I do, he talks to lots of specialists. He’s meticulous in his research.”

Frances leaned forward. “May I ask you something in confidence?”

“You may ask me whatever you like. I don’t promise to maintain your confidentiality, but I expect that my answers may not remain confidential, either.”

“That’s fair.” Frances took a deep breath, trying to maintain her composure. Henry Lewis had done nothing to make her feel the least bit comfortable. In fact, he seemed to go out of his way to keep the conversation tense. “Clio’s body had significant levels of amphetamines in it, as well as trace levels of phenelzine. The coroner believes the amphetamines could have come from over-the-counter diet pills, although there were no actual capsules in her stomach. She had been given a prescription for Nardil by Dr. Prescott. Whether our killer knew that or not, we can’t say. The amphetamine level was high enough to have killed her on its own. Can you think of anyone, anyone at all, with access to Fair Lawn who might have known this information?”

“That phenelzine and amphetamines don’t mix, or that amphetamines can kill?” Henry’s tone made it clear that he thought Frances’s question was pedestrian. “Virtually every woman, or any man, for that matter, I don’t want to make sexist assumptions, anyone who’s ever taken a diet pill would know about the dangers of amphetamines. The precautions, especially dosage levels, would be right on the warning information. And the warnings have intensified since the onslaught of litigation over diet drugs.”

Frances remembered a recent newspaper article about a combination of drugs prescribed for seriously overweight individuals that had resulted in several deaths, a gold mine for the plaintiffs’ bar.

“As for phenelzine, it’s uncommon. It’s used for severe hypochondria and paranoia. You have to look for someone with particular experience with it, or someone with exposure to pretty arcane medical information. Not even your run-of-the-mill doctor would necessarily know about it.”

Their mutual thought hung unspoken in the air. Frances had wanted to disprove Meaty’s theory. Instead the evidence pointed to a killer with particular coronary expertise who had been close enough to poison Clio within a small window of time before her death. Those characteristics pointed to Henry even without the hair analysis.

“I see. And there’s no one you can think of with such knowledge who has access to Fair Lawn?”

“No.”

“May I ask you one more thing?”

“What?”

“How did you and my mother meet?”

“Is that part of your investigation?” he asked.

“Just part of my curiosity.”

“I met her several years ago. I was brought in for a consult on her heart condition. Since then, we’ve become acquainted socially. I enjoy her painting. Louise is very fond of her as well.”

“Her heart condition?” This was the first Frances had heard of cardiac trouble in her family.

“Her mitral valve prolapse? I assumed you knew.”

“I did,” Frances lied. “But that was quite some time ago. I’d almost forgotten. I guess she just seems so well.” She forced a smile.

“Although mitral valve prolapse can be serious, hers isn’t. One of the valves in the heart doesn’t function exactly as it should, so she has a slightly irregular heartbeat. Nothing to worry about. Avoiding certain things like caffeine that tend to elevate her heart rate, taking antibiotics before she has any dental work, there aren’t many restrictions. She has led, and will continue to lead, a normal life.”

Frances stood up and extended her hand, but Henry did not return the gesture. “Thank you for your time,” she said softly as she walked to the door.

As Frances drove to her father’s house, she used her cell phone to get the telephone number for Dr. Fritz Prescott in Manhattan. The operator patched her through, but Dr. Prescott’s voice mail picked up before her call rang even once. She left a message identifying herself as the stepdaughter of his recently murdered patient and gave her number. Dr. Prescott returned her call less than a mile later.

“I was waiting for someone to find me,” he said without identifying himself by name. His voice was soft and melodic, soothing, Frances thought. “I read about Clio’s death in the paper.”

“You haven’t spoken to anyone from the police?”

“No. I actually thought Mr. Pratt might give the police my name, but so far I haven’t been contacted. You’re the first.”

“Could you spare any time today?” Frances looked at her watch. She still needed to see her father, but the visit would be brief. “I could be in the city by three.”

“I have patients until five o’clock. Why don’t we say five-thirty. There’s a coffee shop on 168th and Broadway, just across from the hospital entrance, with a red awning and a neon sign advertising waffles in the window. I’ll see you there.”

“How will I know you?” Frances asked.

“I’ll know you,” he said. “I’ve seen your picture.”

Each time she slowed down in front of the formal gates and turned off Ox Pasture Road into her father’s driveway, Frances felt the same sick feeling in her stomach, tasted the same acidic saliva in her throat. What kind of a life was this for him without Clio? Being wheeled from room to empty room, parked facing out a window, only to be turned periodically for a change of scenery. No one to talk to but Lily or an occasional visitor who passed by for a polite, brief visit, no more than an hour at most. Why go on? She wondered what would happen to him.

Frances parked but sat with the motor idling, staring at the black front door with its oversize brass knocker. The sky had darkened to an eerie gray. Rain was sure to come soon, so ominous was the cloud cover. It felt later than noon.

Frances and Pietro had been visiting Southampton during Hurricane Bob, the hurricane of 1991 that had pounded Long Island and much of the northeastern coastline. With her father they watched the interminable news coverage, reporters in slickers standing in front of pounding surf or toppled trees. Frances had a distinct memory of watching rain on the camera lens. Had some television producer somewhere determined that the storm would feel more real if the reporters were blurred by actual water drops, or had someone simply forgotten to bring an umbrella? Richard had puffed on a cigar. Pietro had smoked and intermittently jumped up from his overstuffed chair to get a better look out the window. They’d sipped cognac, seemingly content to pass the dismal afternoon in conversational banter, discussions of investment potential in Latin America and manufacturing in Thailand, mixed with sports statistics, the fate of the Yankees, and the U.S. Open. Pietro had been so comfortable with her father, more relaxed than she had ever been in Richard and Clio’s house.

Lily’s knock on the driver’s-side window startled Frances. She rolled down the glass. There were heavy crescents of bluish purple under Lily’s eyes, and her skin seemed paler than usual. Frances could see several veins in her forehead.

“Your father’s finally asleep,” Lily said softly, as if her voice might actually carry inside. “I didn’t want you to ring the doorbell. He’s gotten so little rest. He’s very weak.” She stepped back from the truck, allowing Frances to get out.

Frances looked at her father’s nurse, wondering whether to ask how weak, how frail, her father really was, but she couldn’t bring herself to utter the question. She never wanted to hear the truth about Richard’s declining condition. She understood at some level that his health was beyond repair, but hearing the words from Lily’s lips would make it too real. “Is it all right if I have a look inside?” she asked.

“You don’t need to ask me,” Lily replied. “Hannah’s gone into town for groceries, so there’s nobody here but us.”

“I won’t disturb anything,” Frances promised. She followed Lily back inside, and they both stood in the entranceway, staring at the enormous arrangement of delphinium in a cobalt vase on the hall table. Apparently nobody had bothered to cancel Clio’s standing delivery order with the florist.

“Has anyone been through Clio’s things?” Frances asked in a hushed tone.

“The police were here on Monday. They wanted to go through Mrs. Pratt’s personal effects, her correspondence, her checkbook, if that’s what you mean. Blair showed them some business papers, I know that, but your father refused to give them anything else.” Frances listened, recalling the subsequent search of the Pratt Capital offices. “Then,” Lily added, “they came back yesterday with a warrant for the house.”

“Did they take anything?”

“Yes. They left an inventory with your father, but he threw it away. ‘Meaningless documentation,’ he called it. He was displeased by their invasiveness.” She paused as if waiting to see if Frances had any more questions, then dismissed herself. “I’ll be in the kitchen if you need anything.”

The police would’ve taken Clio’s diary this time. They would see the regular notations
3:00—FP at CP
, and
10:00—RC
, Clio’s code. It was clear now that the first referenced her visits to Dr. Fritz Prescott at Columbia Presbyterian Hospital on Wednesday afternoons. The second reference remained indecipherable, something perhaps only Richard could explain.

Frances wandered through the entrance hall, listening to her sandals flap against the marble floor. Despite all the time spent in this house, she still felt like a trespasser, tiptoeing around Clio, who seemed just as omnipotent in death as she had in life. Apprehensive, Frances felt an ingrained sensation that she was doing something wrong, even though there would be no one to accuse her of tracking dirt through the house, sitting down in a wet bathing suit, dropping crumbs that belonged in the kitchen.

She opened the porch doors and stepped outside. Despite the gray sky and the cool temperature, Frances found herself slipping out of her clothes. She dove in. After thirty-eight years she was finally able to skinny-dip in her father’s pool. The water made her heart race, and she swam rapidly back and forth lengthwise. She was a strong swimmer, and her strokes were steady; the water fell away from her bare skin as her arms pulled her forward. After several laps she paused for breath in the deep end. She held on to the side and felt the tile against her breast. Then she noticed a pair of stockinged ankles and white shoes. Lily stood above her. “Your father’s awake.” She placed a towel on the ledge by Frances’s face.

Lily turned her back while Frances pulled herself out of the pool and wrapped the towel around her. “He’s in his bedroom. Why don’t you come in when you’re ready.”

Frances’s damp bare feet squeaked against the wood floors as she ventured into the bedroom where her father had slept since his stroke. He couldn’t have made it up the stairs to the room he once shared with Clio.

Richard was propped up in a large brass bed. Several wedged pillows under his arms appeared to be holding him in place. The navy blue damask comforter had been pulled back, and Frances could see the outline of his thin legs through the cotton blanket that covered him. There was little natural light through the partially opened drapes, but a porcelain bedside lamp cast a warm glow. The room was cozier, more personal, than Frances had expected, with shelves along one wall filled with books. The bedside table was covered by a stack of books, an army of medicine bottles, and several photographs, all angled so that he could see them from his bed—Clio laughing, her head tilted slightly back, Justin building a sand castle on the beach, Blair and Jake at their wedding, and Frances at what looked to be her law school graduation. She had never seen the picture before. Her own image startled her. She wouldn’t have expected to be included in this collection.