Mary Clark - The Cradle Will Fall

"There's more," Charley Nugent said. "Lewis has a girl friend, a Pan Am stewardess. Name's Joan Moore. Lives on East Eighty-seventh Street. Her doorman told us that Captain Lewis drove her home from the airport yesterday morning. She left her bag with him and they went for, coffee in the drugstore across the street."

"It's four o'clock," Scott said crisply. "The judges will be leaving soon. Phil, get one of them on the phone and ask him to wait around for fifteen minutes. Tell him we'll need a search warrant. Charley, you find out what funeral director picked up Vangie Lewis' body in Minneapolis. Get to him. The body is not to be interred. Did Lewis say when he was coming back?"

Charley nodded. "Tomorrow, after the service." "Find out what plane he's on and invite him here for questioning. And I want to talk to Miss Moore. What do you know about her?"

"She shares an apartment with two other stewardesses. She's planning to switch to Pan Am's Latin American division and fly out of Miami. She's down there now, signing a lease on an apartment. She'll be back Friday afternoon."

"Meet her plane too," Scott said. "Bring her here for a few questions. Where was she Monday night?"

"In flight on her way to New York."

"All right." He paused. "Something else. I want the phone records from the Lewis house, particularly from the last week. See if they had an answering service, since he's with an airline. And look again for cyanide. We've got to find out fast where Vangie Lewis got the stuff that killed her. Or where Captain Lewis got it."

DR. FUKHITO'S office was spacious and bright. There was a long writing table, graceful cane-backed chairs with upholstered seats, and a matching chaise. A series of exquisite Japanese woodcuts decorated the walls.

Dr. Fukhito was conservatively dressed: pin-striped suit, light blue shirt, blue silk tie. His jet-black hair and small, neat mustache complemented pale gold skin and brown eyes. He was a strikingly handsome man, Katie thought as she reached for her notebook. "Doctor, you saw Vangie Lewis at about eight o'clock Monday night. How long did she stay?"

"About forty minutes. She phoned Monday afternoon and asked for an appointment. She sounded quite distressed. I told her to come in at eight."

"Why was she so distressed, Doctor?"

He chose his words carefully. "She had quarreled with her husband. She was convinced he did not love her or want the baby. And, physically, the strain of the pregnancy was beginning to tell on her. She was quite immature, really-an only child who had been inordinately spoiled and fussed over. The physical discomfort was appalling to her, and the prospect of the birth had become frightening."

His eyes shifted away. This man was nervous, Katie thought. What advice had he given Vangie that had sent her rushing home to kill herself? Or had sent her to a killer?

Leaning forward, Katie said, "Doctor, I realize that Mrs. Lewis' discussions with you are confidential, but we need to know all you can tell us about the quarrel she had with her husband."

He looked at Katie. "Mrs. Lewis told me that she believed her husband was in love with someone else. She'd accused him of that. She'd warned him that when she found out who the woman was, she'd make her life hell. She was angry, bitter and frightened."

"What did you tell her?"

"I told her that the baby might be the instrument to give her marriage more time. She began to calm down. But then I felt it necessary to warn her that if her marriage did not improve, she should consider the possibility of divorce. She became furious. She swore that she would never let her husband leave her, that I was on his side, like everyone else. She got up, grabbed her coat and left. She used my private entrance to go out the back way."

"And you never heard from her again?"

"No."

"I see." Katie got up and walked over to the wall with the pictures. Dr. Fukhito was holding something back. "I was a patient here myself Monday night, Doctor," she said. "I had a minor automobile accident and was brought here around ten o'clock. Can you tell me, is there any chance that Vangie Lewis did not leave the hospital shortly after eight thirty? That after I was brought in, semiconscious, I might have seen her?"

Dr. Fukhito stared at Katie. "I don't see how," he said. But Katie noticed that his knuckles were clenched and white, and something-was it fury or fear?-flashed in his eyes.

AT FIVE o'clock Gertrude Fitzgerald turned the phone over to the answering service and locked the reception desk. Nervously she dialed Edna's number. Again there was no answer. There was no doubt. Edna had been drinking more and more lately. She was such a good person. They had both worked for Dr. Highley for several years and often had lunch together. Sometimes Edna would want to go to a pub for a manhattan. Gertrude understood her need to drink, understood that hollow feeling when all you do is go to work and then go home and stare at four walls.

Gertrude was a widow, but at least she had the children and grandchildren to care about her. She had her own lonely times, but it wasn't the same as it was for Edna. She'd lived. She had something to look back on.

She could swear Dr. Highley had known she was lying when she said Edna had called in sick. But suppose Edna hadn't been drinking? Suppose she was sick or something? She'd have to find out. She'd drive over to her house right now.

Her mind settled, Gertrude left the office briskly and drove the six miles to Edna's apartment. She parked in the visitors' area and walked around to the front. As she neared Edna's door, she heard the faint sound of voices. The television set, of course.

Gertrude rang the bell and waited. There was no familiar voice calling "Right with you." Gertrude firmly pushed the bell again. Maybe Edna was sleeping it off.

By the time she'd rung the bell four times, Gertrude was thoroughly alarmed. Something was wrong. The superintendent, Mr. Krupshak, lived across the court. Hurrying over, Gertrude told her story. The super was eating dinner and looked annoyed, but his wife, Gana, reached for the keys. "I'll go with you," she said.

The two women hurried across the courtyard together. "Edna's a real friend," Gana Krupshak volunteered. "Sometimes in the evening I pop in on her. Just last night I stopped over at about eight. I had a manhattan with her, and she told me that one of her favorite patients had killed herself. Well, here we are."

They were on the small porch leading to Edna's apartment. The superintendent's wife inserted the key into the lock, twisted it and pushed open the door.

The two women saw Edna at the same moment: lying on the floor, her legs crumpled under her, her graying hair plastered around her face, her eyes staring, crusted blood making a crimson crown on the top of her head.

"No. No." Gertrude's voice rose, high and shrill. She pressed her knuckles to her mouth.

In a dazed voice Gana Krupshak said, "It's just last night I was sitting here with her. And she was talking about a patient who killed herself. And then she phoned the woman's husband." Gana began to sob. "And now poor Edna is dead too!"

CHRIS Lewis stood next to Vangie's parents at the right of the coffin, numbly acknowledging the sympathetic utterances of friends. When he'd phoned her parents about her death, they had agreed that they would view her body privately and have a memorial service the next morning followed by a private interment.

Instead, when he'd arrived in Minneapolis, he found that they had arranged for a public viewing that night. "So many friends will want to say good-by to our little girl," her mother sobbed. Our little girl. If only you had let her grow up, Chris thought, it might all have been so different.