We'll Meet Again (28 page)

At ten o’clock on Saturday morning, Calvin Whitehall set his plan in action. He had summoned Lou Knox to his study so that Lou could make the call to Fran Simmons in his presence. “If she isn’t in, you’ll try every half hour,” he said. “I want to get her to West Redding today, or at the latest, tomorrow. I can’t keep our friend Dr. Logue under control much longer.”

Lou knew he was not expected to comment or respond in any way. At this stage of an action, Cal tended to think out loud.

“You have the cell phone?”

“Yes, sir.” The cell phone would be used for this call because not only would it show up as ANONYMOUS CALL if Fran had Caller I.D., but as a fail-safe, the number was billed to a phony name at a mail drop in Westchester County in New York.

“Go ahead and try her. And make sure you do a good job of convincing her. Here’s the number. I’m happy to say it was listed.” If it had been unlisted, Cal thought, it would have been simple enough to ask Jenna to get it from Molly, claiming that I wanted to set up the appointment Simmons had been requesting. But he was glad that step had not been necessary. It would have violated his cardinal rule: In any plan, the fewer people involved, the better.

Lou took the scrap of paper and began to press the numbers on the cell phone. There were two rings, and then he heard the receiver being lifted. He nodded to Cal, who watched him intently.

“Hello,” Fran said.

“Ms. Simmons?” Lou asked, employing his late father’s slight German accent.

“Yes, who is this, please?”

“I can’t tell you on the phone, but I overheard you yesterday at the hospital coffee shop, talking to Ms. Branagan.” He paused for effect. “Ms. Simmons, I work at the hospital, and you’re right. Something terrible
is
going on there.”

In her living room, still in her pajamas, the portable phone in her hand, Fran frantically looked for her pen, spotted it on the hassock, and grabbed the message pad from the table. “I
know
there is,” she said calmly, “but unfortunately I can’t prove it.”

“Can I trust you, Ms. Simmons?”

“What do you mean?”

“There’s an old man who has been creating drugs that they use in experiments on patients at Lasch. He’s afraid that Dr. Black wants to kill him, and he wants to tell the story of his research before they are able to stop him. He knows it will get him in trouble, but he doesn’t care.”

He
has
to be talking about Dr. Adrian Lowe, the doctor in those articles, Fran thought. “Has he spoken to anyone else about this?” she asked.

“I know for a fact he hasn’t. I deliver packages from him to the hospital. I’ve been doing this for some time, but I didn’t know what they were until yesterday. He confided in me about the experiments. He was practically bursting with excitement. He wants the world to know what he did to make the Colbert girl come out of the coma before she died.” He paused and lowered his voice to a harsh whisper. “Ms. Simmons, he even has it on tape. I know; I saw it.”

“I’d like to talk to him,” Fran said, trying to keep her voice calm.

“Ms. Simmons, he’s an old man and practically a hermit. He may say that he wants people to know about him, but he’s still scared. If you bring a bunch of people with you, he’ll clam up, and you’ll get nothing.”

“If he wants me to come alone, I’ll come alone,” she said. “Actually I prefer that.”

“Would tonight at seven be okay?”

“Of course. Where should I go?”

Lou circled his index finger and thumb in a victory symbol to Cal. “Do you know where West Redding, Connecticut, is, Ms. Simmons?” he asked.

Edna called Marta early Saturday morning. “Wally is still sleeping, so we’re getting a late start,” she said, trying to sound matter-of-fact. What she really wanted to do was to tell Marta not to worry about coming over to say good-bye, but she knew that would sound terrible, especially after putting her off last night.

“I’ll make a coffee ring,” Marta said. “I know how Wally enjoys my baking. Just give me a ting-a-ling when you’re ready, and I’ll be over.”

For the next couple of hours, Marta fretted over Edna’s phone call. She strongly suspected that there was trouble at Edna’s house. The stress in her friend’s voice this morning was even deeper than it had been last evening. Then too, she’d noticed Edna’s car backing out of the driveway last night, just before nine, and she knew that was unusual as well. Edna hated night driving. Yes, something
definitely
was wrong.

Maybe it will be good for them to get away, Marta decided. March is such a dreary month, and there’s so much bad news around-that nurse being murdered in Rowayton; Molly Lasch probably going back to prison, not that she shouldn’t be restrained somewhere, of course; Mrs. Colbert and her daughter Natasha, both dead within hours of each other.

At 11:30, Edna phoned. “We’re ready for that coffee cake,” she said.

“I’m on my way,” Marta replied with relief.

From the moment she walked in the door of Edna’s kitchen, Marta could see that she’d been right about trouble-and it wasn’t over. It was clear that Wally was in one of his really dark moods. His hands were shoved deep in his pockets; he looked disheveled; he kept casting angry glances at his mother.

“Wally, look what I have for you,” Marta told him. She unwrapped the cake from the aluminum foil. “It’s still warm.”

He ignored her. “Mom, I just wanted to
talk
to her. What’s so bad about that?”

Oh dear, Marta thought. I bet he went over to see Molly Lasch on his own.

“I didn’t go inside. I just looked in. I didn’t go inside the
other time
either. You don’t believe me, do you?”

Marta caught the frightened expression on Edna’s face. I shouldn’t have come, she thought, glancing around as if looking for some means of escape. Edna hates for me to be around when Wally gets upset. Sometimes his tongue runs away with him. Why, I’ve even heard him insult her.

“Wally dear, have some of Marta’s cake,” Edna pleaded.

“Molly did the same thing last night she did last time I was there, Mom. She turned on the light and got scared. But I don’t know why she was scared last night. Dr. Lasch wasn’t all bloody the way he was last time.”

Marta put down the knife she was about to use to cut the coffee cake. She turned to her friend of thirty years. “What is Wally talking about, Edna?” she asked quietly, pieces of a very confused puzzle slowly falling together in her mind.

Edna burst into tears. “He’s not talking about anything. He doesn’t know what he’s talking about. Tell Marta that, Wally.
Tell her. You’re not talking about anything!”

The outburst obviously startled him. “I’m sorry, Mom. I promise I won’t talk about Molly anymore.”

“No, Wally, I think you
should,”
Marta said. “Edna, if Wally knows
anything
about Dr. Lasch’s death, son or no son, you have to take him to the police and let them hear what it is. You can’t let that woman go before that parole board and be sent back to prison if she didn’t kill her husband.”

“Wally, get the bags out of the car.” Edna Barry’s voice sounded flat and resigned as she looked at Marta with pleading eyes. “I know you’re right. I have to let Wally talk to the police, but just give me till Monday morning. I have to have a lawyer with me to protect him.”

“If Molly Lasch spent five and a half years in prison for a crime she didn’t commit, and you
knew
it, I would think
you
need a lawyer to protect
yourself,”
Marta said, sadness and distress in her eyes as she looked across the kitchen at her friend.

There was silence between them, as Wally noisily munched a piece of Marta’s coffee cake.

Fran spent the rest of Saturday morning studying the articles that Dr. Adrian Lowe had either written, or which had been written about him. He makes Dr. Kevorkian look like another Albert Schweitzer, she thought. Lowe’s philosophy was starkly simple: Thanks to advances in medicine, too many people were living for too long. The elderly were consuming financial and medical resources better used elsewhere.

One article stated that much of the elaborate treatment of chronically ill people was wasteful and unnecessary. That decision should be reached by medical experts and carried out without family involvement.

Another article expounded Lowe’s theory that the incompetent were a useful-perhaps even necessary-resource for the study of new or untested drugs. They might be helped dramatically by the drug, or they might die. In either case they would be better off.

Following his career through the various articles, Fran learned that Lowe became so outrageous and outspoken in his theories that he was fired from the medical school where he taught and was even condemned by the AMA. At one point he was indicted for deliberately killing three patients, but the case wasn’t proved. After that, he dropped out of sight. Fran finally remembered where she had heard of him before-he had been discussed in an ethics course she had taken in college.

Did Gary Lasch set up Dr. Lowe in West Redding so that he could carry on his scientific research there? Did he also bring Lowe’s other dedicated student, Peter Black, to Lasch Hospital to help him conduct experiments on unsuspecting patients there? It was certainly beginning to look that way.

It also makes sense, Fran thought. It makes terrible, logical, brutal sense. This evening, God willing, I’ll have proof. If this crazy doctor wants his so-called accomplishments known, then he’s come to the right person. Boy, let me
at
him! I can’t wait.

Her unidentified caller had given her specific directions to Lowe’s location. West Redding was about sixty miles north of Manhattan. I’m glad it’s March, not August, Fran thought. She knew the Merritt Parkway in the summer could be packed with vacationers on their way to the beaches. Even so, she intended to leave with plenty of time to spare. She was due there at seven o’clock-well, it couldn’t come soon enough for her.

She debated about how much recording equipment to take with her. She didn’t want to scare Lowe into clamming up about his work, but she prayed he would let her tape the interview, perhaps even videotape it. In the end she decided to bring both her recorder and video camera. Both would easily fit into her shoulder bag, along with her notebook.

The articles written about Lowe after he had granted interviews were both specific and expansive. I hope he still likes to let everyone in on his theories, Fran thought.

At two o’clock she had finished preparing the questions she wanted to put to Dr. Lowe. By a quarter of three, she was showered and dressed. She called Molly to check on her and was alarmed by the despondent tone of her voice.

“Are you alone, Molly?”

“Yes.”

“Is anyone coming over?”

“Philip called. He wanted to come up tonight, but Jenna is going to be here. I asked him to wait until tomorrow.”

“Molly, I can’t talk about it yet, but a lot is happening, and it’s all promising. It looks like I’m onto something that may be of real help to you and to Philip in handling your case.”

“Nothing like good news, is there, Fran?”

“Molly, I have to be in Connecticut this evening, and if I left now, I could stop and visit with you for a few minutes on the way there. Would you like that?”

“Don’t bother about me, Fran.”

“I’ll be there in an hour,” Fran said, immediately hanging up before Molly could say no.

She’s given up, Fran thought as she impatiently pressed the button for the elevator. In that condition, she shouldn’t be left alone for even one minute.

It’s
my
fault, Philip Matthews told himself over and over again. When Molly got out of prison, I should have dragged her into the car. She didn’t know what she was doing when she talked to the media. She didn’t understand that you can’t admit to the parole board that you accept responsibility for your husband’s death, then go out and say you didn’t do it. Why didn’t I get that across to her?

The prosecutor could have asked to get her parole revoked the minute she made that statement, Philip reasoned. That means that he’s going after her now only because of the second charge.

My one chance to keep Molly out of prison when we appear before the board on Monday is to make them accept that there’s a legitimate possibility that she’s been wrongly accused of Annamarie Scalli’s death. Then I have to beg the members to understand that she didn’t actually intend to retract her admission but rather that she just wanted to regain her memory of that night so she could fully face what had happened. He thought about it. The argument
might
work.
If
he could persuade Molly to stick to that story…
If,
however, was the operative word.

Molly told the reporters that she had the impression there was someone else in the house the night Gary Lasch was murdered, he recalled, and she also said that in her heart, she did not believe she was capable of taking a human life. I might be able to persuade the parole board that this statement came from someone consumed with grief and despair, not from someone trying to trick them into granting parole. I could plead that it’s a matter of record that she was suffering from clinical depression in prison.

Still, all my arguments about her mental state will amount to nothing if I can’t create doubt about Annamarie Scalli’s death, he thought. It all comes down to that.

That was why, late on Saturday afternoon, Philip Matthews drove to the Sea Lamp Diner in Rowayton. The parking lot where Annamarie Scalli had died was no longer cordoned off. Badly in need of repaving and with the white lines that delineated parking spaces almost invisible, it was in use again. There was no indication that a young woman had been brutally murdered there, no hint that Molly Lasch might have to spend the rest of her life in prison because traces of blood from the dead woman had been found on her shoe and in her car.

Philip had brought in a trusted investigator to work with him on the case, and together they were beginning to shape the defense he would offer in court.

Molly said that she had seen a medium-sized sedan pulling out of the parking lot as she left the diner that night. Philip’s investigator had already established that no other customer had left the diner for at least several minutes before Annamarie ran out.

Molly said she had gone directly to her own car. She had noticed a Jeep parked in the lot when she first arrived at the diner to meet Annamarie, but she had no way of knowing that it was Annamarie’s vehicle. The investigator had concluded that Molly must have stepped in the blood that was found on her shoe, and then the blood on the shoe had left a mark on the carpet in her car.

All the evidence is circumstantial, Philip fumed as he went into the diner. The blood on her shoe is the only tangible evidence they have to connect her with the murder. If the killer was in that sedan, it meant he had been parked in the lot, because Molly saw him pull out of the lot. What must have happened, Philip concluded, was that after the killer stabbed Annamarie, he ran back to his own car, then drove away as Molly exited the diner. The murder weapon hasn’t been found. What I can argue is that a few drops of blood may have dripped from the knife onto the tarmac, and Molly stepped in it accidentally, not even noticing it.

But there’s another major problem that we can’t yet explain, Philip thought as he took one last look around the parking lot: a motive for this anonymous killer. Why would someone follow Annamarie Scalli to the diner, wait for her to leave, and kill her? Nothing in her personal life-other than her affair with Molly’s husband years ago-would indicate a motive; he’d had her thoroughly checked out. I know that Fran Simmons is pursuing some theory about the hospital that may connect to Annamarie, he thought. I can only hope she comes up with something-
soon!

When Philip entered the diner, he was pleased to see that Bobby Burke was at the counter. He was also relieved to see that Gladys Fluegel
wasn’t
in sight. His detective had warned him that her story about Molly restraining Annamarie from leaving the diner and then rushing out after her had become increasingly more sensational every time she repeated it.

Philip took a seat at the counter. “Hi, Bobby,” he said. “How about a cup of coffee?”

“Boy, you made it quick, Mr. Matthews. I guess Ms. Simmons called you right away.”

“What are you talking about, Bobby?”

“I phoned Ms. Simmons an hour ago and left a message for her.”

“You did?
What about?”

“That couple you’ve been looking for, the ones who were here Sunday night? They happened to come in for lunch today. They’re from Norwalk. Turns out they flew up to Canada Monday morning and just got home last night. Can you believe they didn’t even
know
what had happened? They said they’ll be glad to talk to you. Their names are Hilmer. Arthur and Jane Hilmer.”

Bobby lowered his voice. “Mr. Matthews, just between us, when I told them what Gladys told the cops, they said she was full of baloney. They said they didn’t hear Mrs. Lasch call ‘Annamarie’ twice. According to them, she called her
once
. And they’re sure she didn’t yell ‘Wait!’ It was Mrs. Hilmer who yelled ‘
Waitress,’
trying to get Gladys’s attention.”

Over the years, Philip Matthews knew he had become cynical. People were predictable and never failed to disappoint you. At that moment, however, he felt like a child in Wonderland. “Give me the Hilmers’ number, Bobby,” he said. “This is
great!”

Bobby smiled. “There’s more, Mr. Matthews. The Hilmers say that when they came in that night they saw a guy sitting in a medium-sized sedan in the parking lot. They even got a good look at his face, because they caught him with their headlights when they parked.
They can describe him
. I’m sure that guy never came in here, Mr. Matthews. It was a slow night, and I’d remember.”

Molly has said since the beginning that she saw a medium-sized sedan pulling out of the lot, Philip thought. Maybe this is our break at last.

“The Hilmers said they won’t be home until nine o’clock tonight, Mr. Matthews. They said if anyone wants to see them after that time, though, he should just be at their house. They understand how important this could be to Mrs. Lasch and are anxious to help.”

“I’ll be on their doorstep,” Philip Matthews said. “Oh God, will I be on their doorstep!”

“The Hilmers said they parked right next to a brand-new Mercedes that night. They remembered because it was cold and that was as near to the entrance as you could get. I told them that must have been Mrs. Lasch’s car.”

“Obviously I hired the wrong person to help me with the investigation, Bobby. Where did you learn about all this?” Philip asked.

Bobby smiled benignly. “Mr. Matthews, I’m the son of a public defender, and he’s a good teacher. I plan to be a public defender too.”

“You’ve got a hell of a start,” Philip told him. “Let me have that coffee, Bobby. I need it.”

As he sipped, Philip debated whether to call Molly and tell her immediately about the Hilmers, then decided against it. I’ll wait until I’ve actually seen them myself, he decided. Maybe there’s even more they can tell that will help her. And I’ve got to get a sketch artist up here-tomorrow, if possible-so we can get an idea of the guy they saw in the parking lot. This could be our salvation!

Oh, Molly, Philip thought yearningly as the image of her face, haunted and sad, filled his mind. I’d give my right arm to see you free from this nightmare. And I’d give anything in the world to see you smile.