Mary Clark - We'll Meet Again

Calvin Whitehall is a financier, she thought. Even all those years ago he was successful and wealthy. He should be able to give me some answers about my father, or at least tell me how I can find them.

She was tempted to go to bed, but decided to at least skim a few of the magazines she had taken from Molly. First she glanced at the dates on the covers. Molly had said they were old, but Fran was surprised to see that the earliest one went back over twenty years. The most recent were dated thirteen years ago.

She looked at the oldest one first. An article entitled “A Plea for Reason” was checked on the index page. The author’s name seemed vaguely familiar, but perhaps not. Fran began to read. I don’t like the way this guy thinks, she thought, horrified at what he had written.

The second magazine, eighteen years old, had an article by the same author. It was entitled “Darwin, Survival of the Fittest, and the Human Condition in the Third Millennium.” Accompanying this entry was a picture of the author, a professor of research at Meridian Medical School. He was shown in the laboratory with two of his most promising student assistants.

Fran’s eyes widened with shock as she matched the face of the professor to his vaguely familiar name, then recognized the two students.

“Bingo!” she said. “That explains it all.”

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.”