Mary Clark - We'll Meet Again

Lou should have been back by 9:30. As he did with everything, Calvin Whitehall had calculated the precise amount of time it would take for his henchman to go to West Redding, take care of business, and return. As he watched the clock in his library with intense awareness, he acknowledged to himself that unless Lou returned soon, something must have gone terribly wrong.

Too bad, because this was an all-or-nothing game. There was no such thing as cutting his losses if he failed.

By ten o’clock he had begun to consider how quickly he could distance himself from his aide-de-camp, Lou Knox.

At ten minutes after ten the front doorbell rang. He had told the housekeeper to take the night off, something he frequently did. It annoyed him to have household help around all the time. Cal understood that, of course, this feeling was the product of his origins. In most cases, no matter how much you achieve in life, humble beginnings trigger humble responses, he thought.

He headed down the hall toward the door, catching his reflection in a mirror along the way. What he saw was a barrel-chested man with a ruddy complexion and thinning hair. For some reason a remark he had heard about himself when he was fresh out of Yale flashed into his mind. The mother of one of his Yale friends had whispered, “ Cal does not look comfortable in his Brooks Brothers suit.”

He was not surprised to find not one but four people at the door. The spokesman said, “Mr. Whitehall, I’m Detective Burroughs from the prosecutor’s office. You are under arrest for conspiracy to murder Frances Simmons and Dr. Adrian Lowe.”

Conspiracy to murder, he thought, letting the phrase echo in his mind.

It was worse than he expected.

Cal stared at Detective Burroughs, who cheerfully returned his gaze. “Mr. Whitehall, for your information, your coconspirator, Lou Knox, is singing like a bird from his hospital bed. And another piece of good news-Dr. Adrian Lowe is making a statement at the police station right now. It seems he can’t praise you enough for all you did to make his criminal research possible.”

At seven o’clock, Philip Matthews was parked in front of the Hilmers’ house, hoping that perhaps they’d get home early.

However, it was ten minutes past nine when they pulled into their driveway. “I’m so terribly sorry,” Arthur Hilmer said. “We knew there was a good chance that someone would be waiting for us here, but our granddaughter was in a play, and… well, you know how that is.”

Philip smiled. A nice man, he thought.

“Of course you don’t know how it is,” Hilmer corrected himself. “Our son is forty-four. You’re probably about that yourself, I’d say.”

Philip smiled. “Do you read tea leaves?” He then introduced himself, explaining briefly about Molly’s being in danger of having to return to prison, and how they could be important to him in defending her case.

They went into the house. Jane Hilmer, an attractive, well-preserved woman in her mid-sixties, offered Philip a soft drink, a glass of wine, or coffee, all of which he refused.

Arthur Hilmer obviously understood that he needed to get down to business. “We talked to Bobby Burke at the Sea Lamp today,” he said. “You could have bowled the two of us over when we heard what had happened there that Sunday night. We’d caught a movie at the mall and then gone to the diner for a sandwich.”

“We left first thing the next morning to visit our son in Toronto,” Jane Hilmer volunteered. “We only just got back last night. Today, we stopped at the diner for lunch on our way to Janie’s play, and that’s when we heard.” She looked at her husband.

“As I said, we were bowled over. We told Bobby that of course we wanted to help in any way we could. Bobby probably told you that we got a pretty good look at the guy in the sedan in the parking lot.”

“Yes, he did,” Philip confirmed. “I’m going to ask you to make a statement to the prosecutor’s office tomorrow morning, and then I want you both to get together with the police artist. A sketch of the man you saw in that sedan would be very helpful.”

“Glad to do that,” Arthur Hilmer said. “But I can be even more help to you, I think. You see, we paid particular attention to both of the women when they left. We’d seen the first woman go by our table, and it was obvious that she was upset. Then that classy-looking blond lady, who I now understand is Molly Lasch, left. She was crying. I heard her call out, ‘Annamarie!’ ”

Philip tensed. Don’t give me bad news, he silently begged.

“It was obvious the other woman didn’t hear her,” Arthur Hilmer said flatly. “There’s a little oval window over the cashier’s desk. From where I was sitting I could see out clearly into the parking lot, or at least to the part closest to the diner. The first woman must have crossed the lot over to the darker side-I couldn’t see her. But I’m certain I saw that second lady-I mean Molly Lasch-go straight to her car and take off. I can swear there’s no way in heaven or hell she could have walked across the parking lot to that Jeep and plunged a knife into the other woman, not in the time between when I saw her walk out the diner and when she drove away in her car.”

Philip didn’t know that his eyes had moistened until he brushed them with the back of his hand in a reflex gesture. “I can’t begin to find words,” he said, then stopped. He sprang up. “I’ll try to find the right words to thank you tomorrow,” he said. “Right now, I’ve got to get to Greenwich.”

Dr. Peter Black stood at the window of his upstairs bedroom, a glass of scotch in his hand. He watched with blurring eyes as two unfamiliar cars pulled into his driveway. He did not need to observe the businesslike manner in which the four large men emerged, and came walking up his cobblestone walk to know that it was all over. Cal the Mighty has finally crashed, he thought with a trace of humor. Unfortunately, he’s taking me with him.

Always have a contingency plan-that was one of Cal ’s favorite mottoes. I wonder if he has one now? Peter Black thought. Truthfully, though, I never liked the guy, so I really don’t care.

He crossed to his bed and opened the drawer of his night table. Then he took out a leather case and extracted a hypodermic needle, already filled with fluid.

With a look of suddenly personal curiosity, he studied the instrument. How many times had he, with compassion in his face, given that injection, knowing that the trusting eyes gazing up at him would soon lose their focus and then would close forever?

According to Dr. Lowe, this drug not only left no trace in the blood, there was also no pain attached to its effect.

Pedro was knocking at the bedroom door, to announce the uninvited guests.

Dr. Peter Black stretched out on his bed. He took a final sip of scotch and then plunged the needle into his arm. He sighed as he briefly thought that at least Dr. Lowe had been right about there being no pain.

“I am all right,” Fran insisted. “I know there’s nothing broken.” She had refused to go to the hospital, and was taken instead in a squad car to the prosecutor’s office in Stamford as was Dr. Lowe. From there she’d called Gus Brandt at home, filling her boss in on the events of the evening. Using the phone hookup, he’d gotten Fran’s breaking story on the air, with file-tape footage providing the background.

When the police-both state and local-had arrived at the scene of the explosion, Dr. Lowe announced that he wanted to surrender to the authorities and make a full statement about the medical breakthroughs his research had achieved.