We'll Meet Again (18 page)

She’d been arraigned. Fingerprinted. Photographed. She heard Philip Matthews say, “My client pleads not guilty, Your Honor.” The prosecutor arguing that she might disappear and requesting house arrest. The judge saying one million dollars bail and confining her to her home.

Shivering in the holding cell. The bail paid. Like an obedient child, Molly, listless and detached, did as she was told, until finally she was in the car with Philip, who was driving her home.

His arm around her, he half carried her into the house and to the family room. He made her lie down on the sofa, put one of the decorative pillows under her head, then went hunting for a blanket and tucked it around her.

“You’re shivering. Where’s the starter for the fire?” he asked.

“On the mantel.” She was not aware she was answering a question until she heard her own voice.

A moment later the fire blazed up, warm and comforting.

“I’m staying,” Philip said. “I have my briefcase; I can work on the kitchen table. You close your eyes.”

When she opened them with a start, it was seven o’clock, and Dr. Daniels was sitting beside her. “You okay, Molly?”

“Annamarie,” she gasped. “I was dreaming about her.”

“Do you want to tell me about it?”

“Annamarie knew something terrible was going to happen to her. That was why she hurried out of the diner. She wanted to escape her fate. Instead, she ran into it.”

“You think Annamarie knew she was going to die, Molly?”

“Yes, I do.”

“Why do you think Annamarie knew that?”

“Doctor, that was part of the dream. You know the fable of the man who was told he was going to meet death that night in Damascus, so he rushed to Samara to hide? And a stranger came up to him in the street there and said, ‘I am Death. I thought our appointment was in Damascus ’?” She grasped Dr. Daniels’s hands. “It was all so real.”

“You mean there was no way Annamarie could save herself?”

“No way at all. I can’t save myself either.”

“Tell me about that, Molly.”

“I don’t really know,” she whispered. “When I was in the holding cell today, and they locked that door, I kept hearing another door being locked or unlocked. Isn’t that odd?”

“Was it a prison door?”

“No. But I don’t know yet what door it is. The sound is part of what happened the night Gary died.” She sighed and, pushing the blanket away, sat up. “Oh God, why can’t I remember? If I could, maybe I’d have a chance.”

“Molly, it’s a good sign that you’re retrieving specific incidents or sounds.”

“Is it?” she said wanly.

The doctor studied Molly carefully. He could see the effects of the recent stress in her face: lethargic, depressed, withdrawn; sure that her own fate was sealed. Clearly she did not want to talk any longer.

“Molly, I’d like to get together with you every day for a while. All right?”

He had expected that she might protest, but she nodded indifferently.

“I’ll tell Philip I’m leaving,” he said.

“He should go home too. I’m so grateful to both of you. There’re not too many people hanging around these days. My father and mother, for example. They’ve been noticeably absent.”

The doorbell rang. Dr. Daniels saw the panic in Molly’s eyes. Not the police? he thought, dismayed.

“I’ll get it,” Philip called.

Dr. Daniels watched the relief that washed over Molly as the click of heels and a woman’s voice preceded Jenna Whitehall’s arrival. Her husband and Philip followed her into the room.

Dr. Daniels watched approvingly as Jenna gave Molly a brief hug and said, “Your Rent-a-Chef service is here, ma’am. No housekeeper, alas, but the mighty Calvin Whitehall himself will serve and clean up, with the able assistance of Attorney Philip Matthews.”

“I’m on my way,” the doctor said with a brief smile, glad Molly’s friends had come to her aid and anxious himself now to be going home. He instinctively disliked Calvin Whitehall, whom he’d met only a few times. His gut instinct was that the man was a natural bully, not remotely hesitant to use his immense power, not only to achieve his goals, but to manipulate people just so he could have the pleasure of watching them twist in the wind.

He was surprised and none too pleased when Whitehall followed him to the door.

“Doctor,” Whitehall said, his voice low, as though he were afraid of being overheard, “I’m glad to see you’re here with Molly. She’s terribly important to all of us. Do you think there is any possibility of having her declared incompetent to stand trial, or failing that, to have her judged not guilty of this second murder by reason of insanity?”

“Your question leaves no doubt that you consider Molly guilty of the death of Annamarie Scalli,” Dr. Daniels said coldly.

It was obvious Whitehall was both startled and offended by the implied rebuke.

“I would hope my question reflects the measure of the affection my wife and I hold for Molly and our awareness that a long prison sentence would be tantamount to a death sentence for her.”

God help the person who tangles with you, Daniels thought, noting the flush of indignation on Whitehall ’s cheekbones and the chipped-ice glint in his eyes. “Mr. Whitehall, I appreciate your concern. I am planning to see or talk with Molly on a daily basis, and we will simply have to take all this one day at a time.” He nodded and turned to the door.

As he drove home, Dr. Daniels thought, Jenna Whitehall may be Molly’s best friend, but she is married to a man who tolerates no interference and who lets no one get in his way. It occurred to him that this renewed interest in the scandal surrounding the death of Gary Lasch, the founder of Remington Health Management, surely wasn’t a welcome turn of events to Remington’s chairman of the board.

Is Whitehall in Molly’s home as the husband of her best friend, or is he there because he’s trying to figure the best plan for damage control? Daniels wondered.

Jenna had brought asparagus au gratin, rack of lamb, tiny new potatoes, broccoli, and biscuits-all of the dishes prepared and ready to be served. With decisive haste she set the table in the kitchen, while Cal opened a bottle of wine that he let Molly know was a Château Lafite Rothschild Bordeaux, “from the best of my private stock.”

Molly looked up in time to catch Philip’s bemused expression, and Jenna’s slight grimace at Cal ’s boasting, pretentious tone.

They
mean
well, she thought wearily, but I really wish they hadn’t come. They’re trying so hard to pretend it’s an ordinary evening in Greenwich, and here we are, getting together at the last minute for an informal dinner in the kitchen. She remembered how, years ago, when Gary was still alive and she thought her life was happy, Jenna and Cal would occasionally drop in unannounced, invariably staying for dinner.

Domestic bliss-that was my life. I used to love to cook and thought nothing of whipping up a dinner in minutes. I enjoyed showing off the fact that I didn’t need or want a cook or a live-in housekeeper. Gary used to seem so proud of me: “
She’s not only gorgeous and smart, she can cook. How did I get so lucky?
” he would ask, beaming at her before their guests.

And all of it a charade, she thought.

Her head was aching so much. She pressed her temples with the tips of her fingers, massaging gently, trying to make the pain go away.

“Molly, would you rather just skip all this?” Philip asked quietly. He was sitting opposite her at the table, both of them ordered there by Jenna.

“As a husband and a doctor, he wasn’t worth the price you paid for killing him, Mrs. Lasch.”

Molly glanced up to see Philip staring at her.

“Molly, whatever do you mean?” he asked.

Confused, she looked past him. Jenna and Cal were staring at her too. “I’m sorry,” she said haltingly. “I guess I’m at the point where I don’t know the difference between what I’m thinking and what I’m saying. I just remembered that Annamarie Scalli said that to me when I met her at the diner Sunday night. What struck me at the time was that she was so sure I killed Gary, while I had gone to meet her harboring the hope that I might find out that she had been angry enough to have killed him.”

“Molly, don’t think about it now,” Jenna urged. “Drink your wine. Try to relax.”

“Jenna, listen to me,” Molly said, her tone passionate. “Annamarie said that as a
doctor,
Gary wasn’t worth the price I paid for killing him. What made her say that? He was a wonderful doctor. Wasn’t he?”

There was a silence as Jenna continued her preparations. Cal just stared at her. “You understand what I’m getting at?” Molly said, her voice almost pleading. “Maybe there was something in Gary ’s professional life that we don’t know about.”

“It’s something to pursue,” Philip said quietly. “Why don’t we talk to Fran about it?” He looked up at Cal and Jenna. “Initially I was against Molly cooperating in any way with Fran Simmons,” he said, “but having been around her and seen her in action, I now honestly believe that she is in Molly’s corner.”

He turned to Molly. “By the way, she called while you were asleep. She’s spoken to the boy who was working at the counter in the diner on Sunday night. He says he didn’t hear you call out to Annamarie a second time, which is what the waitress is claiming. It’s a small thing, but we should be able to use him to discredit her testimony.”

“That’s good-I know I didn’t remember that,” Molly said. “Sometimes, though, I wonder what is real and what I’ve imagined. I just told Dr. Daniels that something keeps coming into my head about the night Gary died-something about a door. He says it’s a good sign that I’m starting to have specific memories. Maybe there are other answers to these deaths. I hope so. I do know that I can never go to prison again.” She paused, then whispered more to herself than to the others, “That won’t happen.”

There was a long silence, which Jenna broke with cheerful determination. “Hey, let’s not let this great dinner get cold,” she said, taking her place at the table.

An hour later, on the way home in the car, sitting in the back as Lou Knox drove them, Jenna and Cal were silent until Jenna said, “Cal, do you think it’s possible that Fran Simmons
will
uncover something that could help Molly? She
is
an investigative reporter, and maybe even a good one.”

“But first you have to have something to investigate,” Cal Whitehall said brusquely. “She doesn’t. The more Fran Simmons digs, the more she’ll find herself coming back to the same answer, which is the obvious one.”

“What do you think Annamarie Scalli could have meant by criticizing Gary as a doctor?”

“My guess, my dear, is that Molly’s little bursts of memory are highly unreliable. I wouldn’t attach any importance to them, and I’m sure no jury would either. You heard her. She’s threatening suicide.”

“It’s wrong for people to give Molly unreasonable hope. I wish Fran Simmons would stay out of it!”

“Yes, Fran Simmons
is
a terrible nuisance,” Cal agreed.

He did not have to look at the rearview mirror to know that Lou Knox was watching him as he drove. With a barely perceptible nod, he answered Lou’s unspoken question.

Did I detect a change in Tasha when I was there last week, or am I just imagining it now? Barbara Colbert asked herself as she stared out into the darkness on the drive to Greenwich. Nervously she clasped and unclasped her hands.

Dr. Black’s call had come just as she was preparing to leave for the Met, where she had a subscription for the Tuesday night opera performance series.

“Mrs. Colbert,” the doctor had said, his tone grave, “I’m afraid there’s been a change in Tasha’s condition. We believe that her systems may be shutting down.”

Please let me get there in time, Barbara prayed. I want to be with her when she dies. They’ve always told me that she probably doesn’t hear or understand anything we say to her, but I’ve never been sure of that. When the time comes, I want her to know that I am there. I want my arms around her when she draws her last breath.

She sat back and gasped. The thought of losing her child had the physical impact of a dagger in her heart. Tasha… Tasha…, she thought. How did this ever happen?

Barbara Colbert arrived to find Peter Black at Tasha’s bedside. His countenance conveyed a kind of practiced grimness. “We can only watch and wait,” he said, his voice solicitous.

Barbara ignored him. One of the nurses moved a chair close to the bed so that she could sit with her arm slipped around Tasha’s shoulders. She looked into her daughter’s lovely face, so serene, as though she were simply sleeping and might open her eyes at any minute and say hello.

Barbara stayed next to her daughter throughout the long night, unaware of the nurses in the background, or of Peter Black adjusting the solution that dripped into Tasha’s veins.

At six o’clock, Black touched her arm. “Mrs. Colbert, it appears that Tasha has stabilized, at least to a degree. Why don’t you have a cup of coffee and let the nurses attend to her? You can come back then.”

She looked up. “Yes, and I must speak to my chauffeur. You’re sure…”

He knew what she meant, and nodded. “No one can be sure, but I don’t think Tasha is ready to leave us yet, at least not in the next little while.”

Mrs. Colbert went out to the reception area. As she expected, Dan was asleep in one of the club chairs. A hand on his shoulder was enough to bring him to alert wakefulness.

Dan had been with the family since before Tasha was born, and over the years they had grown very close. Barbara answered his unasked question: “Not yet. They say she has stabilized for now. But it could be anytime.”

They had rehearsed this moment. “I’ll call the boys, Mrs. Colbert.”

Fifty and forty-eight years old, and he still calls them the boys, Barbara thought, vaguely comforted by the realization that Dan was grieving with her. “Ask one of them to pick up a bag for me at the apartment. Call and tell Netty to have it ready.”

She forced herself to go into the small coffee shop. The sleepless night had not affected her yet, but she knew it was inevitable.

The waitress in the coffee shop clearly knew about Tasha’s condition. “We’re praying,” she said, then sighed. “It’s been a sad week. You know, Mr. Magim died early Saturday morning.”

“No, I didn’t. I’m sorry.”

“Not that it wasn’t expected, but we were all hoping he’d make his eightieth birthday. You know what was nice, though? His eyes opened just before he died, and Mrs. Magim swears they focused right on her.”

If only Natasha could say good-bye to me, Barbara thought. We were a very happy family, but never a particularly demonstrative one. I regret that now. So many parents end every conversation with their children by saying, “I love you.” I always thought that was overdone, even silly. Now I wish I had never let Tasha out of my presence without saying that to her each and every time.

When Barbara went back to the suite, Tasha’s condition appeared to be unchanged. Dr. Black was standing at the window of the sitting room, his back to her. He was using his cellular phone. Before Barbara could indicate her presence, she overheard him say, “I don’t approve, but if you insist, then I don’t have a choice, do I?” His voice was tight with anger-or was it fear?

I wonder who gives him orders, she thought.