Irresolutely Edna had held the moccasin in her hand and locked
up. She went out to the parking lot toward her own car just in
time to see Vangie's big red Lincoln Continental pull out with Dr.
Highley at the wheel. She'd run a few steps to wave to him, but it
was no use. So she'd just gone home.
Now, checking her calendar, she wondered if Dr. Highley had
already made a new appointment with Vangie. She decided to
phone her just to be sure. She dialed the number. The Lewis phone
rang once, twice.
A man answered. "Lewises' residence."
"Mrs. Lewis, please. This is Dr. Highley's office. We want to
set up Mrs. Lewis' next appointment."
"Hold on."
She heard muffled voices talking. What could be going on? The
voice returned. "This is Detective Cunningham of the Valley
County prosecutor's office. I'm sorry, but Mrs. Lewis has died suddenly.
You can tell her doctor that someone on our staff will contact
him tomorrow."
"Mrs. Lewis died!" Edna's voice was a howl of dismay. "Oh,
what happened?"
"It seems she took her own life." The connection was broken.
Slowly Edna lowered the receiver. It just wasn't possible.
The two-o'clock appointments arrived together: Mrs. Volmer
for Dr. Highley, Mrs. Lashley for Dr. Fukhito.
"Are you all right, Edna?" Mrs. Volmer asked curiously.
Edna knew Mrs. Volmer had sometimes talked to Vangie in the
waiting room. It was on the tip of her tongue to tell her she was
dead. But some instinct warned her to tell Dr. Highley first.
His one-thirty appointment came out. He was on the intercom.
"Send Mrs. Volmer in, Edna."
"Doctor, may I step into your office for a moment, please? I'd
like to have a word with you."
"Certainly." He didn't sound very happy about it.
She hurried down the hall to his office, then timidly stepped inside.
"Doctor," she began, "you'll want to know. I just phoned
Vangie Lewis to make an appointment. A detective answered and
said she killed herself. They're coming to see you tomorrow."
"Mrs. Lewis did what?"
Now that she could talk about it, Edna's words came tumbling
out in a torrent. "She was so upset last night, wasn't she, Doctor?
She acted like she didn't care about anything. But you must know
that; I thought it was the nicest thing when I saw you drive her
home. I waved to you, but you didn't see me. So I guess of all
people you know how bad she was."
"Edna, how many people have you discussed this with?"
There was something in his tone that made her nervous. Flustered,
she replied, "Why, nobody, sir. I just heard this minute."
"You did not discuss Mrs. Lewis with Mrs. Volmer or with the
detective on the phone?"
"No, sir."
"Edna, tomorrow when the police come, you and I will tell
them everything we know about Mrs. Lewis' frame of mind. But
listen to me now." He pointed his finger at her and leaned forward.
"I don't want Mrs. Lewis' name mentioned by you to anyone—
anyone, do you hear? Her suicide reflects very badly on our
hospital. How do you think it's going to look if it comes out that
she was a patient of mine? If I hear you have so much as mentioned
the Lewis case, you're finished here. Is that clear?"
"Yes, sir."
"Are you going out with friends tonight? You know how you
get when you drink."
Edna was close to tears. "I'm going home tonight. I want to have
my wits about me tomorrow when the police talk to me. Poor
little Cinderella." Tears came to her eyes, but then she saw the
expression on his face. Angry. Disgusted.
Edna straightened up, dabbed at her eyes. "I'll send Mrs. Volmer
in, Doctor. And you don't have to worry," she added with dignity.
"I value our hospital. I know how much your work means to you
and to our patients. I'm not going to say one single word."
The afternoon was busy. She managed to push the thought of
Vangie to the back of her mind. Finally at five o'clock she could
leave. Warmly wrapped in a leopard-spotted fake fur coat, she
drove home to her apartment in Edgeriver, six miles away.
CHAPTER FOUR
IN THE autopsy room of the Valley County Morgue, Richard Carroll
gently removed the fetus from the corpse of Vangie Lewis.
It was a boy, and he judged that it weighed about two and a half
pounds. He noted that the amniotic fluid had begun to leak. Vangie
Lewis could not have carried this baby much longer; she had been
in an advanced state of toxemia. It was incredible that any doctor
had allowed her to progress so far in this condition.
Richard had no doubt that it was the cyanide that had killed
the woman. She'd swallowed a huge gulp of it, and her throat
and mouth were badly burned. The burns on the outside of her
mouth? Richard tried to visualize the moment she'd drunk the
poison. She'd started to swallow, felt the burning, changed her
mind, tried to spit it out. It had run over her lips and chin.
To him it didn't make sense.
There were fine white fibers clinging to her black coat. They
looked as though they'd come from a blanket. He was having
them analyzed, but, of course, they might have been picked up
at any time.
Her body had become so bloated that it looked as though she
had just put on any clothes she could find that would cover her.
Except for the shoes. They were an incongruous note. They were
well cut, expensive and looked quite new. It was unlikely that
Vangie could have been outdoors on Monday in those shoes. There
were no water spots on them, even though the ankles of her panty
hose were spattered. Which suggested that she must have been
out, come in, decided to leave again, changed her shoes and then
committed suicide. That didn't make sense either.
Another thing. Those shoes were awfully tight. Particularly on
the right foot. Considering the way she was dressed, why bother
to put on shoes that will kill you?
Richard straightened up. He was just about finished. Once
more he turned to study the fetus. Suddenly something struck him.
Was it possible? It was a hunch he had to check out. Dave Broad
was the man for him. Dave was in charge of prenatal research at
Mount Sinai. He'd send this fetus to him and ask for an opinion.
If what he believed was true, there was a good reason why Chris
Lewis would have been upset about his wife's pregnancy.
Maybe upset enough to kill her!
SCOTT Myerson, the Valley County prosecutor, had scheduled
a five-o'clock meeting in his office for Katie, Richard and the two
Homicide Squad detectives assigned to the Lewis suicide.
Katie arrived first. As she eased herself into a chair, Scott looked
at her with a hint of a smile. He was a small man with a surprisingly
deep voice. Large-rimmed glasses, a dark, neat mustache
and meticulously tailored conservative suit made him look more
like a banker than a law enforcer. Now he observed Katie's bandaged
arm and the bruise under her
eye.
"Thanks for coming in, Katie," he said. "If you start feeling
rotten, you'd better go home." Then he became businesshke. "The
Lewis case. What have we got on it?"
While she was talking, Richard came in with Charley Nugent and
Phil Cunningham. Silently they settled in the remaining chairs.
Scott listened to Katie, then turned to the detectives. "What did
you come up with?"
Phil Cunningham pulled out his notebook. "That place was no
honeymoon cottage. The neighbors liked Chris Lewis, but they
thought Vangie was a pain in the neck. At parties she was always
hanging on him; got upset if he talked more than five minutes to
another woman. Then when she got pregnant she was really insufferable.
Talked baby all the time."
Charley opened his notebook. "Her obstetrician's office called
to make an appointment. I said we'd talk to her doctor tomorrow."
Richard spoke quietly. "There are a few questions I'd like to
ask that doctor about Vangie Lewis' condition."
Scott looked at Richard. "You've finished the autopsy?"
"Yes. It was definitely cyanide. She died instantly. Which leads
to the crucial point."
There were some paper cups and a water pitcher on top of the
file cabinet. Walking over to the file, Richard poured a generous
amount of water into a cup. "Suppose this is filled with dis
solved cyanide," he said. "I take a large gulp." Quickly he swallowed.
He held up the paper cup. It was still nearly half full. "In
my judgment, Vangie Lewis must have drunk at least the approximately
three ounces I just swallowed in order to have the amount
of cyanide we found in her system. But here's the problem. The
outside of her lips and chin and even her neck were burned. The
only way that could have happened would have been if she spit a
lot of the stuff out. But would she then take another mouthful? No
way. The reaction is instantaneous."
Richard went on to explain his belief that Vangie Lewis could
not have walked comfortably in the shoes that had been laced on
her feet. While Katie listened, she visualized Vangie's face. The
face she had seen in the dream and the face she'd seen on the bed
slid back and forth in her mind. She forced her attention back to
the room. Charley was saying, "Richard and I feel the husband
noticed something about the body that he didn't tell us."
"I think it was the shoes," Richard said.
Katie turned to Scott. "I told you about the phone call Chris
Lewis made."
"You did." Scott Myerson leaned back in his chair. "All right.
You two"—he pointed to Charley and Phil—"find out everything
you can about Lewis. See who this Joan is. Find out what time
his plane came in this morning. Check on phone calls Vangie Lewis
made the last few days. Katie, try to see Mrs. Lewis' doctor and get
his opinion of her mental and physical condition."
"I can tell you about her physical condition," Richard said.
"If she hadn't delivered that baby soon, she could have saved
her cyanide."
"There's another thing. Where did she get the cyanide?"
"No trace of it in the house," Charley reported. "Not a drop."
"Anything else?" Scott asked.
"There may be," Richard said. "But it's so far out. Give me
another twenty-four hours. Then I may have something."
Scott stood up. "I believe we all agree. We're not closing this
as a suicide." He looked at Richard. "Is there any chance that she
died somewhere else and was put back on her bed?"
Richard frowned. "It's possible."
Katie started to get up. "I know it's insane, but—" She felt
Richard's arm steadying her.
"You sure look stiff," he interrupted.
She'd been about to describe the crazy dream she'd had in the
hospital. His voice snapped her back to reality. What a fool she'd
have appeared to them. Gratefully she smiled at Richard. "Stiff
in the head mostly, I think," she commented.
HE COULD not let Edna destroy everything he'd worked for. His
hands gripped the wheel. He could feel them trembling. He had
to calm down.
It was ironic that she of all people had seen him drive the
Lincoln out of the parking lot. Obviously she'd assumed that
Vangie was with him. The minute she told her story to the police,
everything would be over.
Edna had to be silenced. His medical bag was on the seat next
to him. In it he had put the paperweight from his office desk. He
didn't usually carry a bag anymore, but he'd taken it out this
morning, planning to put the moccasins in it. He'd intended to drive
into New York for dinner and leave them in separate litter cans.
But this morning his housekeeper, Hilda, had come in early.
She'd stood talking to him while he put on his tweed overcoat. He'd
had no chance to transfer the moccasins from his Burberry to the
bag. No matter. He'd get rid of the shoes tomorrow night.
It was a stroke of luck that Edna lived quite near the hospital.
Several times he'd dropped off work for her when she was laid
up with sciatica. That was why he knew her apartment. He'd make
it look like a murder committed during a felony; take her wallet,
grab any bits of jewelry she had. Once, when he'd left some work
at her place, she'd shown him a butterfly-shaped pin with a
minuscule ruby, and her mother's engagement ring with a dot of a
diamond in it. She kept them in a plastic jewelry box in the night-
table drawer.
He thought about the apartment. How would he get in? Did he
dare ring the bell? Suppose she wasn't alone?
But she would be alone. He was sure of it. She was going home
to drink. He could tell. That's why he waited a few hours before
coming. So that she'd be drunk. Watching her from the corridor,
he'd seen how agitated she was, obviously filled with the stories
she wanted to tell to the police tomorrow.
He was driving into her apartment area. She lived on the
ground floor at the end of her building. Thick bushes and a rusting
chain link fence separated the complex from a steep ravine that
dropped down a dozen feet and terminated in railroad tracks.
Edna's bedroom window backed onto the parking lot. By now
she must be very drunk. He could go in and out by the window.
That would lend credence to a burglary.
He parked his car, then pulled on his surgical gloves. He put the
paperweight in his coat pocket and slid cautiously out, closing the
door noiselessly.
Edna's bedroom shade was pulled down most of the way, but
she had a plant in the window. The shade rested on the top of the
plant, and he could see in clearly. The room was partially lighted
by a fixture in the hall. The window was open a crack. She must
be in the living room. He could hear the faint sound of a television
program.
Glancing about to make sure that the area was deserted, he
raised the window, pulled up the shade, carefully lifted the plant
out onto the ground. He hoisted himself up to the sill.
He was inside. In the di
m light he observed the virginal tidiness,
the crucifix over the bed, the lace runner on the dresser. Now for
the part he detested. He felt for the paperweight in his pocket and
began to tiptoe down the short hall, past the bathroom, to the
living room. Cautiously he peered in. The television set was on,
but the room was empty. He heard the sound of a chair creaking.
She must be at the table in the dinette. With infinite care he moved
into the living room. This was the moment. If she saw him and
screamed...
But her back was to him. Wearing a woolly blue robe, she sat
slumped at the table, one hand next to a cocktail glass, the other in
her lap. A tall pitcher was almost empty. Her head was on her
chest. She must be asleep.
Quickly he appraised the situation. His eye fell on the hissing
radiator to the right of the door. It was the old-fashioned kind
with sharp, exposed pipes. Was it possible he didn't need the
paperweight after all? Maybe ...
"Edna," he whispered softly as he came around the table.
"Wha . . ." She looked up at him with bleary eyes. Confused,
she began to rise, twisting in her chair. "Doctor . . ."
A mighty shove sent her smashing backward. Her head cracked
against the radiator. Blinding lights exploded in her brain. Oh, the
pain, the pain! Edna sighed, floated into darkness.