We'll Meet Again (31 page)

“No more, Jenna, that’s definitely enough. I swear to you I’m getting a buzz on.”

“Oh for heaven’s sake, Moll, you’ve had a glass and a half.”

“I thought this was at least my third.” She shook her head as if trying to clear it. “You know, this wine is potent.”

“What’s the difference? With all you have on your mind, you might as well relax. You hardly touched dinner.”

“I ate plenty, and it was good. I’m just not very hungry.” She raised her hand in protest as Jenna poured more wine into her glass. “No, I can’t drink any more. My head is spinning.”

“Let it spin.”

They were seated in the study, both with their heads back, their bodies sunk into comfortable, overstuffed chairs that faced each other across a small, low table. For several minutes they sat in silence, while a jazz piano CD played softly in the background.

In a pause between songs, Molly spoke. “You know what, Jen? Last night I had a nightmare. It was very unsettling. I thought I saw Wally Barry at the window.”

“Good Lord!”

“I wasn’t scared, just startled. Wally would never hurt me; I know that. But after seeing him at the window, I turned back and all of a sudden this room looked the way it did that night when I came home and found Gary dead at his desk. And I think I’ve figured out why I made that connection-I believe Wally really was here that night.”

Molly had kept her head back while she spoke. She was starting to feel so sleepy. She tried to keep her eyes open and to raise her head. What had she just said? Something about finding Gary.

Finding Gary
.

Suddenly her eyes were fully open, and she sat forward.

“Jen, I just said something important!”

Jenna laughed. “Everything you say is important, Molly.”

“Jen, this wine tastes funny.”

“Well, I won’t tell the mighty Cal you said that. He would be insulted.”

“Click, snap. That’s another sound I heard.”

“Molly, Molly, you’re getting hysterical.” Jenna stood and crossed to her friend. Standing behind the chair, she put her arms around her and bent her head forward so that her cheek was resting against Molly’s head.

“Fran thinks I’m going to commit suicide.”

“Are you?” Jenna asked calmly, relaxing her embrace and standing back, then moving to sit on the table in front of Molly.

“I thought I was. I planned to. That’s why I got all dressed up. I wanted to look classy when they found me.”

“You
always
look classy, Molly,” Jenna said softly. She slid Molly’s wineglass closer to her. Molly reached for it and knocked it over.

“Not classy to be clumsy,” she murmured, slumping back in her chair. “Jen, I
did
see Wally at the window that night. I’m sure of it. It may have been a dream last night, but it wasn’t before. Call him, okay? Ask him to come over and talk to me.”

“Molly, be reasonable.” Jenna chided. “It’s ten o’clock.” Grabbing their cocktail napkins, she mopped the spilled wine from the tabletop. “I’ll get you a refill.”

“Noo… no… no. I’ve had enough.”

My head hurts, Molly thought.
Click, snap
. “Click, snap,” she said.

“What are you talking about?”

“The sound I heard that night. Click… snap… click, click, click.”

“You heard that, dear?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Molly, I swear you
are
getting your memory back. You should have gotten a buzz on sooner. You just sit there and relax. I’ll get you that refill.”

Molly yawned as Jenna picked up the empty glass and hurried to the kitchen.

“Click, click, click,” Molly said aloud, in synch with the clicking sound Jenna’s high heels made on the hallway floor.

As he drove to Greenwich, Philip decided that he should at least give Molly a few minutes’ warning before he arrived on her doorstep. He dialed her house and waited in anticipation for either her or Jenna to answer.

He listened with growing concern as the telephone rang seven, eight, ten times. Either Molly was in such a dead sleep that she couldn’t hear the phone, or she had turned off the ringer.

But she wouldn’t turn it off, Philip decided. Very few people have her number, and she surely wouldn’t want to be out of touch with any one of us at this point.

He remembered his conversation with her that afternoon. Molly had sounded so listless, so depressed then-maybe she is already asleep. No, Jenna is with her, Philip reminded himself as he turned into Molly’s street at the intersection.

But maybe Jenna left early. He glanced at the clock on the dashboard: ten o’clock. It’s not that early, he thought. Maybe she’s finally getting a decent night’s sleep. Should I just turn around and go home? he wondered.

No. Even if he had to rout Molly out of bed to tell her about the Hilmers’ testimony, he was going to do it. Nothing short of a miracle would ease her mind more than that news. It would be worth waking her up for.

As he neared Molly’s house, a squad car with its lights flashing sped past him. Horrified, he watched as it turned into Molly’s driveway.

Jenna came back to the study with a fresh glass of wine for Molly. “Hey, what are you up to?” she asked.

Molly had moved to the sofa, where she had spread out all the photographs they had been going through earlier.

“Memory lane,” she replied, her words slurred. She took the glass and lifted it in a mock toast. “Lord, look at the four of us,” she said, tossing a photo on the coffee table in front of the sofa. “We were happy then… or at least, I thought so.”

Jenna smiled. “We were happy, Molly. The four of us made quite a showing for ourselves. It’s too bad it had to end.”

“Uh-huh.” Molly took a sip of wine and yawned. “My eyes are closing. Sorry…”

“The best thing in the world for you right now is to finish that wine and get a good, long sleep.”

“The four of us,”
Molly said, her tone groggy. “I like to be with you, Jenna, but not with Cal.”

“You don’t like Cal, do you, Molly?”

“You don’t like him either. In fact I think you hate him. That’s why you and Gary…”

Molly was vaguely aware of the glass being taken from her hand, then of Jenna’s arm around her, of Jenna holding the glass to her lips, of Jenna whispering soothingly, “Swallow, Molly, just keep swallowing…”

“There’s Jenna’s car,” Fran Simmons said to Assistant Prosecutor Jacobs as they pulled into the driveway in front of Molly Lasch’s house. “We have to hurry-she’s in there with Molly!”

Jacobs had ridden in the squad car with Fran and two police officers. Even before the vehicle had come to a complete stop, Fran had the door on her side open. As she jumped out, she saw another car racing up the driveway behind them.

Unmindful of the steady throb of pain emanating from her ankle, she ran up the steps to the house and pressed her finger on the bell.

“Fran, what’s going on?”

Fran turned to see Philip Matthews racing up the steps. Was he afraid for Molly too? she wondered fleetingly.

Inside, she could hear chimes echoing through the house.

“Fran, did something happen to Molly?” Philip was beside her now, flanked by the police officers.

“Philip! It’s Jenna. It was her! It’s got to be. She was the other person here the night Gary Lasch was murdered. She doesn’t dare let Molly get her memory back. She knows Molly heard her running out of the house that night. She’s desperate. We’ve got to stop her! I know I’m right.”

“Break in the door,” Jacobs ordered the policemen.

The door, made of solid mahogany, took a precious full minute before their battering ram dislodged it from its hinges and crashed to the floor.

As they ran into the entrance hall, a new sound echoed through the house-Jenna’s hysterical screams for help.

They found her kneeling beside the couch in the study, where Molly was slumped over, her head partially covering a picture of her murdered husband, Gary Lasch. Molly’s eyes were open and staring. Her hand dangled limply over the side of the couch. A wineglass lay on the carpet, its contents soaking into the deep pile.

“I didn’t know what she was doing!” Jenna wailed. “Every time she left the room she must have been putting sleeping pills in the wine.” She threw her arms around Molly’s supine body, weeping as she rocked her. “Oh, Molly! Wake up, wake up…”

“Get away from her.” With abrupt force, Philip Matthews grabbed Jenna and shoved her aside. Roughly he pulled Molly up. “You can’t die, now! Not now!” he shouted. “I won’t
let
you die.”

Before anyone could move to assist him, he had lifted her in his arms. Moving swiftly he plunged through the door that led from the study into the downstairs guest bathroom. Jacobs and one of the officers followed him inside.

Within seconds Fran heard the sound of the shower running, followed moments later by the retching, gagging sound of Molly emptying her stomach of the wine that Jenna had laced with the sleeping pills.

Jacobs emerged from the bathroom. “Get the oxygen from the car!” he ordered one of the policemen. “Send for an ambulance,” he told the other.

“She kept saying over and over again that she wanted to die,” Jenna babbled. “She kept going into the kitchen and refilling her glass. She was imagining weird things. She said you were angry, that you wanted to kill her, Fran. She’s crazy. She’s out of her mind.”

“If Molly was ever crazy, Jenna, it was when she trusted you,” Fran said quietly.

“Yes, I was.” Molly, supported by Philip and one of the policemen, was being helped back into the room. She was soaking wet from the shower and still heavily sedated, but there was no mistaking the total condemnation in her eyes and voice.

“You killed my husband,” she said. “You tried to kill me. It was you I heard that night. Your heels running down the hall. I had locked the front door. I had pushed the bolt down. That was the sound I heard. The click of your heels in the hallway. You pushing up the bolt, unlocking the door.”

“Wally Barry saw you, Jenna,” Fran said. He saw a
woman,
she thought. He didn’t see Jenna’s face, but maybe she’ll believe me.

“Jenna,” Molly cried, “you let me spend five and a half years in prison for the crime you committed. You would have let me go back to prison. You wanted me to be convicted of Annamarie’s death. Why, Jenna?Tell me why.”

Jenna looked from one to the other, at first with almost pleading eyes. “Molly, you’re wrong,” she began.

Then she stopped, knowing it was useless. Knowing she was trapped.Knowing it was over.

“Why, Molly?” she asked. “Why?” Her voice began to rise. “WHY? Why did your family have money? Why did Gary and I need to marry what you and Cal could offer us? Why did I introduce Gary to you? Why all the foursomes? So that Gary and I could be together as much as possible, never mind all the times we were alone together over the years.”

“Mrs. Whitehall, you have the right to remain silent,” Jacobs began.

Jenna ignored him. “From the time we laid eyes on each other, we were in love. And then you told me that Sunday afternoon that Gary had been having an affair with that nurse and that she was pregnant.” She laughed bitterly.

“I was now the
other
other woman. I came here to have it out with Gary. I parked down the street so you wouldn’t see my car if you were early. He let me in. We quarreled. He kept trying to make me get out before you got home. Then he sat at his desk and turned his back to me and said, ‘I’m beginning to think that I didn’t do so badly marrying Molly. At least when she’s angry, she goes to Cape Cod and refuses to talk to me. Now go home and leave me in peace.’ ”

The anger left her voice. “And then it happened. I didn’t plan to do it. I didn’t mean to do it.”

The shriek of the approaching ambulance broke the silence that followed as Jenna’s voice trailed off. Fran turned to Jacobs and said, “For the love of God, don’t let that ambulance takeMolly to Lasch Hospital.”

“Ratings for last night’s show are great,” Gus Brandt said, six weeks later. “Congratulations. It’s the best
True Crime
episode we ever aired.”

“Well, you can thank yourself for setting it in motion,” Fran told him. “If you hadn’t assigned me to cover Molly’s release from prison, none of this would have happened, or if it had, it would have happened without me.”

“I especially like what Molly Lasch said in the wrap-up, the part about having faith in yourself and hanging in when you feel overwhelmed. She credits you with keeping her from committing suicide.”

“Jenna almost did that for her,” Fran said. “If her plan had worked, we would have all assumed that Molly really had killed herself. Still, I think I would have had my doubts. I don’t believe that when push came to shove, Molly would actually have taken those pills.”

“It would have been a loss-she is one beautiful woman,” Gus said.

Fran smiled. “Yes, and she always has been-on the inside as well as the outside. That’s much more important, don’t you think?”

Gus Brandt returned Fran’s smile, and he gradually shaped his expression into one of benevolence. “Yes, I do. And speaking of important, I think it’s time you gave yourself a little break. Go ahead, take a day off. How about Sunday?”

Fran laughed. “Is there a Nobel Prize for generosity?”

Hands in her pockets, her head down, in what her stepbrothers called “Franny’s thinking position,” she went back to her office.

I’ve been traveling on reserve ever since that day I waited for Molly to come out of Niantic Prison, she admitted to herself. It’s all behind me now, she thought, but I’m still licking my wounds.

So much had happened. In his effort to escape a possible death sentence, Lou Knox had willingly volunteered whatever information he could about Cal Whitehall and the mysterious doings at Lasch Hospital. The pistol he had in his pocket when he was arrested at the farmhouse had been the weapon used to kill Dr. Jack Morrow. “ Cal told me that Morrow was one of those guys who always make trouble,” he had told the cops. “He was asking too many questions at the hospital about some dead patients. So I took care of him.”

The Hilmers had positively identified Lou as the man they had seen sitting in the sedan in the parking lot of the Sea Lamp Diner. Knox explained the reason for Annamarie’s death: “She could have been a big-time troublemaker,” he said. “She heard Lasch and Black talking about getting rid of the old lady with the bad heart. She also went along with covering for Black when he messed up the Colbert girl, but Cal got cold feet when he saw on Molly’s calendar that she was meeting Annamarie Scalli in Rowayton. He was sure that next Annamarie would shoot off her mouth to that Fran Simmons. An inquiry by her might have led her to the ambulance attendants who’d been paid off to say Tasha Colbert went into cardiac arrest on the way to the hospital. Then I’d have to take care of them. So it was just simpler to get rid of Scalli.”

When you start counting the people who were murdered in cold blood because they were perceived as threatening, and add to that the ones who died in the name of research, it’s pretty chilling, Fran said to herself. And when I put what happened to Dad in the same context, I realize that he was a victim as well. His weakness compounded it, of course, but Whitehall actually caused his death.

Assistant Prosecutor Jacobs had shown Fran the worthless stock certificates that Lou had kept as a reminder of a profitable little scam on her father. “ Cal had Lou Knox give your father a hot tip to buy $40,000 worth of this stock,” Jacobs told her. “He was sure your father would fall for it, because he apparently practically worshiped Whitehall ’s financial success.

“Cal Whitehall counted on your father to borrow the money from the library fund. He was on the committee with your father and had access to the account as well. The $40,000 withdrawal became $400,000, thanks to Cal ’s manipulations, and your father knew he could neither replace it nor prove that he hadn’t taken the entire amount.”

He still took money that wasn’t his, even if he only meant it as a kind of loan, Fran thought. At least Dad must be smiling, since Lou’s other “hot tip” didn’t blow me to kingdom come as intended.

She would cover the trials of Dr. Lowe, Cal Whitehall and Jenna for the network. Ironically, Jenna’s defense was apparently going to be passion provocation manslaughter, the exact charge to which Molly had earlier pleaded guilty.

Evil people, all of them. But, she reflected, they’re going to pay for what they did with many years in prison. On the bright side, though, Remington Health Management will be taken over by American National Insurance, with a good and decent man at the helm. Molly is selling the house and moving to New York, where she’ll start a magazine job next month. Philip is crazy about her, but Molly needs a lot of time to heal and sort out her life before even thinking about a commitment. What is to be will be, and he knows it.

Fran reached for her coat. I’m going home, she decided. I’m tired and I need to regroup. Or maybe it’s spring fever setting in, she thought, as she looked out at the flowers on display below at Rockefeller Center.

She turned to see Tim Mason standing in her doorway. “I’ve been watching you today,” he said. “I have decided you look kind of down. My prescription is to come with me to Yankee Stadium immediately. The game starts in forty-five minutes.”

Fran smiled. “A perfect solution for the blues,” she agreed, making a quick decision.

Tim linked her arm in his. “Dinner will be a hot dog and beer.”

“Your treat, remember,” Fran interjected. “Think of your mother’s feeling on the subject.”

“Absolutely. However, a small bet on the outcome of the game would enhance my enjoyment.”

“I’ll take the Yankees, but I’ll give you a three-run spread,” Fran offered.

They stepped into the elevator and the door closed behind them.