Mary Clark - We'll Meet Again

Passive exercises and facials and massages and pedicures and manicures kept her body beautiful and supple. Her hair, still flame red, was washed and brushed daily and worn loose about her shoulders. She was dressed in silk pajamas and robes. The nurses were instructed to talk to her as if she could understand every word.

Barbara thought of the months when she and Charles had come to see Tasha almost every day. But the months soon became years. Worn out with emotional and physical exhaustion, they eventually reduced the number of visits to twice a week. When Charles died, she had, with great reluctance, heeded the advice of her sons and given up the house in Greenwich and set up permanent residence in the New York apartment. Now she made the trip only once each week.

Today as always, Barbara walked through the reception area and down the corridor to her daughter’s suite. The nurses had Tasha propped up on the couch in the sitting room. Barbara knew that under the coverlet there were safety straps that held her rigidly in place and kept her from slipping, a precaution against injury caused by the involuntary jerking movements Tasha’s muscles sometimes made.

With familiar pain, Barbara studied the calmly serene expression on Tasha’s face. Sometimes she thought she could detect eye movement, or perhaps hear a sigh, and would have the impossible, wild thought that maybe Tasha was not beyond hope after all.

She sat by the couch and took her daughter’s hand. For the next hour she talked to her about the family. “Amy is starting college, Tasha, can you believe that? She was only ten when you had the accident. She looks a lot like you. She could almost be your daughter, not just your niece. George Jr. is a bit homesick but otherwise enjoys prep school.”

At the end of the hour, weary but at peace, Barbara kissed Tasha on the forehead and signaled the nurse to come back into the room.

When she reached the reception area she found Dr. Peter Black waiting for her. When Gary Lasch had been murdered, the Colberts had debated moving Tasha to another facility, but Dr. Black had convinced them to leave her there.

“How did you find Tasha today, Mrs. Colbert?”

“The same, Doctor. It’s about the best I can expect, isn’t it?” Barbara Colbert knew that she was unreasonable in her ambiguous feelings about Peter Black. Gary Lasch had chosen him to be his partner, and she had no reason to feel that Tasha’s care was lacking in any way. Still, she just couldn’t warm to him. Maybe it was because of his close association with Calvin Whitehall, whom Charles had derisively dubbed a “would-be robber baron.” On those occasions when she got back to Greenwich and dined at the club with her friends, she often saw Black and Whitehall together there.

As she bid Peter Black good night and walked to the door, Barbara could not know that the doctor was staring intently at her, or that he was remembering the terrible moment when her daughter had been catastrophically damaged, and that he was remembering as well the words a traumatized Annamarie Scalli had screamed at Gary: “That girl came in here with nothing worse than a mild concussion. Now the two of you have destroyed her! ”

For almost six years Philip Matthews had believed that he had done the best job a trial lawyer could to get Molly Lasch a light sentence. Five and a half years for the murder of a doctor with a thirty-five-year life expectancy was practically a free ride.

As Philip had often told Molly on his visits to her in prison, “When you get out, you can put all this behind you.”

But now Molly was out of prison and was doing exactly the opposite of that. It was clear that she did not think she had gotten off easily.

Philip knew that, more than anything else, he wanted to protect Molly from the people who inevitably would attempt to exploit her.

People such as that Fran Simmons.

Late on Friday afternoon, just as he was about to leave for the weekend, his secretary announced a call from Simmons.

Philip considered not taking the call, but then decided he might as well speak to her. His greeting, however, was cool.

Fran got right to the point: “Mr. Matthews, you must have a transcript of Molly Lasch’s trial. I’d like to have a copy of it as soon as possible.”

“Ms. Simmons, I understand you went to school with Molly. So as an old friend, I wish you would consider calling off this program. We both know it can only hurt Molly.”

“Would it be possible to have a copy of the transcript on Monday, Mr. Matthews?” Fran asked crisply, then added, “You must know that I am planning this program with Molly’s complete cooperation. In fact, it’s even at her request that I undertook it in the first place.”

Philip decided to try a different approach. “I can do better than Monday. I’ll have a copy run off and delivered to you tomorrow, but I’m going to ask you to consider something. I believe Molly is much more fragile than anyone realizes. If during the course of your investigation, you become convinced of her guilt, then I ask you to give her a break and cancel this program. Molly is not going to get the public vindication she wants. Don’t destroy her with a guilty-as-charged verdict just so you can get higher ratings from the mindless couch potatoes out there who want to see someone eviscerated.”

“Let me give you my address for your messenger,” Fran said, biting off her words, hoping she sounded as furious as she felt.

“I’ll put my secretary on. Good-bye, Ms. Simmons.”

Once Fran had replaced the receiver, she got up and walked to the window. She was due in makeup right now but knew she needed to take a moment to calm down first. Without having met him, she thoroughly disliked Philip Matthews, although she could not help feeling that he was passionately sincere in his desire to shield Molly.

She found herself wondering suddenly if anyone had ever considered searching for another explanation for Gary Lasch’s death. Molly’s parents and friends, Philip Matthews, the Greenwich police, and the state attorney who prosecuted her-all of them must have begun with the presumption of her guilt.

Which is exactly what I’ve been doing as well, Fran thought. Maybe it’s time to start with the opposite approach.

Molly Carpenter Lasch did not kill her husband, Gary Lasch , she said to herself, considering the sound of it, and wondering where it would lead.

On Friday afternoon, Annamarie Scalli went straight home after taking care of her last patient. The weekend loomed ahead of her, and already she knew it was going to be a difficult one. Since Tuesday morning, when Molly Lasch’s release from prison had received so much television coverage, half of Annamarie’s patients had mentioned the case to her.

She understood that it was only coincidence, that they had no awareness of her connection to the case. Her patients were homebound, and they saw the same repetitious programs, mostly soap operas, all the time. Having a more-or-less-local crime like this was simply something new and different to mull over-a privileged young woman claiming that she didn’t believe she murdered her husband, even though she had plea-bargained to a lesser charge and had spent time in prison for his death.

The comments varied from crusty old Mrs. O’Brien saying that he got what any husband who cheated deserved, to Mr. Kunzman’s comment that if Molly Lasch had been black and poor, she’d be serving twenty years.

Gary Lasch wasn’t worth having her serve even one day in prison, Annamarie thought as she opened the door of her garden apartment. Too bad I was too much of a fool to realize it then.

Her kitchen was so tiny that she always said it made the galley of an airplane look roomy. But she had made the most of it by painting the ceiling a sky blue and sketching a lattice with flowers on the walls; as a result the meager space became her indoor garden.