Mary Clark - We'll Meet Again

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.