The Second Time Around (8 page)

“DNA?”

“Exactly. And don't forget that DNA has revolutionized the legal system as well as making it possible to predict hereditary diseases.”

I thought about the prisoners who were being released from death row because their DNA proved they hadn't committed the crime.

Gwen still had a full head of steam. “Remember all the books where a child was kidnapped, and then thirty years later an adult showed up at the door and said, ‘I'm home, Mommy.' ” Today it isn't a case of whether or not somebody looks like somebody else. DNA testing makes the difference.”

Our dinners arrived. Gwen took a couple of bites, then went on. “Carley, I don't know whether Nick Spencer was a charlatan or a genius. I understand some of the early results of his cancer vaccine as reported in medical journals seemed to be very encouraging, but face it: At the end of the day, they couldn't verify the results. Then, of course, Spencer disappears, and it turns out he looted the company.”

“Did you ever meet him?” I asked.

“In a big group at some of the medical seminars. A very impressive guy, but you know what, Carley?
Knowing how much he stole from people who couldn't afford to lose it and, even worse, how he dashed the hopes of people desperate for the vaccine he touted, I can't feel a scintilla of sympathy for him. So his plane crashed. As far as I'm concerned, he got what he deserved.”

C
onnecticut is a beautiful state. My father's cousins lived there when I was growing up and when we visited them, I thought that all of the state was like Darien. But like every other state, Connecticut has its modest working-class towns, and the next morning when I got to Caspien, a hamlet ten miles from Bridgeport, that was what I found.

The trip didn't take that long, less than an hour and a half. I left my garage at nine o'clock and was passing the “Welcome to Caspien” sign at ten-twenty. The sign was a wood carving illustrated with the image of a revolutionary soldier holding a musket.

I drove up and down through the streets to get the feel of the place. The majority of the houses were Cape Cods and split levels, the kind built in the mid-1950s. Many of them had been enlarged, and I could see where yet another generation had replaced the original owners,
the veterans of World War II. Bicycles and skate boards were visible in carports or leaning near side doors. The large percentage of vehicles parked in the driveways or on the streets were SUVs or roomy sedans.

It was a family kind of town. Almost all the houses were well kept. As in every place where people dwell, there was a section where the houses were bigger, the lots larger. But there were no cookie-cutter mansions in Caspien. I decided that when people started to make it big, they set out the “for sale” sign and moved to a more pricey enclave nearby, such as Greenwich or Westport or Darien.

I drove slowly down Main Street, the center of Caspien. Four blocks long, it had the usual mix of smalltown business establishments: Gap, J. Crew, Pottery Barn, a furniture store, a post office, a beauty parlor, a pizza joint, a few restaurants, an insurance broker. I cruised through a couple of the intersecting blocks. On Elm Street I passed a funeral parlor and a shopping mall that included a supermarket, dry cleaner, liquor store, and movie house. On Hickory Street I found a diner and next to it a two-story building with a sign that read caspien town journal.

From my map I could see that the Spencer family home was located at 71 Winslow Terrace, an avenue that spiked off from the end of Main Street. At that address I found a roomy frame house with a porch, the kind of turn-of-the-century house I grew up in. There was a shingle outside that read
PHILIP BRODERICK, M.D
. I wondered if Dr. Broderick lived on the upstairs
floor where the Spencer family had lived.

In an interview, Nicholas Spencer had painted a glowing picture of his childhood: “I knew I couldn't interrupt my father when he had patients, but just knowing he was there downstairs, a minute away, made me feel so great.”

I intended to pay a visit to Dr. Philip Broderick, but not yet. Instead I drove back to the building that housed the
Caspien Town Journal,
parked at the curb, and went inside.

The heavyset woman at the reception desk was so absorbed in something on the Internet that she looked startled when the door opened. But her expression immediately became pleasant. She gave me a cheery “good morning” and asked how she could help me. Wide rimless glasses magnified her light blue eyes.

I had decided that instead of announcing myself as a reporter for
Wall Street Weekly,
I would simply request recent back issues of the newspaper. Spencer's plane had crashed nearly three weeks ago. The scandal about the missing money and the vaccine was now two weeks old. My guess was that this hometown paper had probably covered both stories in depth.

The woman had an amazing lack of curiosity about what I was doing there. She disappeared down the hall and returned with copies of the last weeks' editions. I paid for them—a total of $3.00—tucked them under my arm, and headed for the diner next door. Breakfast had been half an English muffin and a cup of instant coffee. I decided that a bagel and brewed coffee would
make excellent “elevenses” as my British friends call their mid-morning tea or coffee break.

The diner was small and cozy, one of those places with red checkered curtains and plates with pictures of hens and their chicks lining the wall behind the counter. Two men in their seventies were just getting up to leave. The waitress, a tiny bundle of energy, was whisking away their empty cups.

She looked up when the door opened. “Take your pick of the tables,” she said, smiling. “East, west, north, or south.” The name tag on her uniform read, “Call me Milly.” I judged her to be about my mother's age, but unlike my mother, Milly had fiercely red hair.

I chose the rounded corner booth where I could spread out the papers. Before I'd settled, Milly was beside me, order pad in hand. Moments later the coffee and bagel were in front of me.

Spencer's plane had gone down on April 4. The oldest paper I'd bought was dated April 9. The front page had a picture of him. The headline read “Nicholas Spencer Feared Dead.”

The story was an ode to the memory of a small-town boy who had made good. The picture was a recent one. It had been taken on February 15 when Spencer was awarded the first “Distinguished Citizen Award” ever presented by the town. I did some arithmetic. February 15 to April 4. At the time of the award, he had forty-seven days left on this planet. I've often wondered if people get a sense that their time is running out. I think my father did. He went out for a walk that morning eight years ago, but my mother told me that at the door
he hesitated, then came back and kissed the top of her head. Three blocks away he had a heart attack. The doctor said he was dead before he hit the ground.

Nicholas Spencer was smiling in this picture, but his eyes looked pensive, even worried.

The first four pages of the paper were all about him. There were pictures of him as an eight-year-old Little Leaguer. He'd been the pitcher on the Caspien Tigers. Another picture showed him at about age ten with his father in the laboratory of the family home. He'd been on the swim team in high school—that picture had him posing with a trophy. Another had him in a Shakespearean costume holding something that looked like an Oscar—he'd been voted best actor in the senior play.

The picture of him with his first wife on their wedding day twelve years ago made me gasp. Janet Barlowe Spencer of Greenwich had been a slender, delicately featured blonde. It's too much to say that she was a double for Lynn, but there's no question that there was a very strong resemblance. I wondered if their similarity had anything to do with his getting together with Lynn.

There were tributes to him from a half-dozen local people, including a lawyer who said they'd been best friends in high school, a teacher who raved about his thirst for knowledge, and a neighbor who said he always volunteered to run errands for her. I took out my notebook and jotted down their names. I guessed I'd be able to find their addresses in the phone book, if I decided to contact them.

The following week's issue of the newspaper covered
the fact that the Gen-stone vaccine that Spencer's company had claimed would be the definitive cure for cancer was a failure. The article noted that the co-chief executive of Gen-stone had conceded they might have been too hasty in publicizing its early successes. The picture of Nick Spencer that accompanied the story appeared to be company issued.

The newspaper that came out five days ago had the same picture of Spencer but carried a different caption: “Spencer Accused of Looting Millions.” They used the word “alleged” throughout the article, but an editorial suggested that the appropriate award for the town to have offered him should have been another Oscar for best actor and not its first “Distinguished Citizen Award.”

“Call me Milly” was offering me more coffee. I accepted and could see that her eyes were snapping with curiosity at the sight of the pictures of Spencer side by side on the table. I decided to give her an opening.

“Did you know Nicholas Spencer?” I asked.

She shook her head. “No. He was gone by the time I came to town twenty years ago. But let me tell you, when those stories came out about him swindling his company and his vaccine being no good, a lot of people around here got mighty unhappy. Plenty of them bought stock in his company after he got the medal. In his speech he said it might be the most important discovery since the polio vaccine.”

His claims had been getting loftier, I thought. Had it been a case of rope in one more bunch of suckers before you disappear?

“The dinner was a sellout,” Milly said. “I mean, Spencer's been on the cover of a couple of national magazines. People wanted to see him up close. He's the only thing resembling a celebrity this town ever produced. It was a fund-raiser, of course. I hear that after they heard his speech, the board of directors bought a lot of stock in Gen-stone for the hospital's portfolio. Now everybody's mad at everybody else for thinking up the award and getting him here for it. They won't be able to go ahead with the new children's wing of the hospital.”

The coffeepot was in her right hand, and she put her left hand on her hip. “Let me tell you, in this town Spencer's name is
mud.

“But God rest him,” she added reluctantly. Then she looked at me. “Why are you so interested in Spencer? You a reporter or something?”

“Yes, I am,” I admitted.

“You're not the first nosing around about him. Someone from the FBI was in here asking questions about who his friends might be. I said he didn't have any left.”

On that note I paid my bill, gave Milly my card, saying, “In case you ever want to get in touch with me,” and got back in the car. This time I drove to 71 Winslow Terrace.

S
ometimes I get lucky. Dr. Philip Broderick did not have office hours on Thursday afternoon. When I arrived, it was a quarter of twelve and his last patient was leaving. I gave one of my brand-new
Wall Street Weekly
cards to his receptionist. Looking doubtful, she asked me to wait while she spoke to the doctor. Keeping my fingers crossed, I did just that.

When she returned, she said, “The doctor will see you.” She sounded surprised, and frankly I was, too. While doing the freelance profiles I learned that when the subject is controversial, you have just as good a chance of getting an interview by ringing a doorbell as you have by phoning and trying to make an appointment. My theory is that some people still have an innate sense of courtesy and feel that if you take the trouble to come to them, you deserve to be tolerated if not welcomed. The rest of that theory is that some people
worry that if they refuse you on their own doorstep, you might write something negative about them.