Charles Potters answered, “I can assure you it was quite good. Doctor, or rather Ms. Petrovic lived very carefully and made good investments. This house was paid off, and she had eight hundred thousand dollars in stocks, bonds and cash.”
So much money, Stephanie thought, and now she would not have a penny of it. She rubbed her hand across her forehead. Her back hurt. Her feet were swollen. She was so tired. Mr. Potters was helping her arrange the funeral mass. It would be held at St. Dominic’s on Friday.
She looked around. This room was so pretty, with its blue brocaded upholstery, polished tables, fringed lamps and pale blue carpet. This whole house was so pretty. She’d liked being in a place like this. Helene had promised that she could take some things from here for her apartment in New York. What would she do now? What was the policeman asking?
“When do you expect your baby, Stephanie?”
Tears gushed down her cheeks as she answered. “In two weeks.” She burst out, “He told me it was my problem and he’s moved to California. He won’t help me. I don’t know where to find him. I don’t know what to do.”
29
The shock that Meghan had felt at once again seeing the dead woman who resembled her had dulled by the time a vial of blood was drawn from her arm.
She did not know quite what reaction she expected from Mac when he viewed the body. The only one she had detected was a tightening of his lips. The only comment he made was that he found the resemblance so startling he felt the DNA comparison was absolutely necessary. Dr. Lyons voiced the same opinion.
Neither she nor Mac had eaten lunch. They left the medical examiner’s office in separate cars and drove to one of Meg’s favorite spots, Neary’s on Fifty-seventh Street. Seated side by side on a banquette in the cozy restaurant, over a club sandwich and coffee, Meghan told Mac about Helene Petrovic’s falsified credentials and her father’s possible involvement.
Jimmy Neary came over to inquire about Meghan’s mother. When he learned Catherine was in the hospital, he brought his portable phone to the table for Meghan to call her.
Phillip answered.
“Hi, Phillip,” Meghan said. “Just thought I’d phone and see how Mom is doing. Would you put her on, please?”
“Meg, she’s had a pretty nasty shock.”
“What kind of shock?” Meghan demanded.
“Somebody sent her a dozen roses. You’ll understand when I read the card to you.”
Mac had been looking across the room at the framed pictures of the Irish countryside. At Meghan’s gasp, he turned to her, then watched as her eyes widened in shock. Something’s happened to Catherine, he thought. “Meg, what is it?” He took the phone from her shaking fingers. “Hello . . .”
“Mac, I’m glad you’re there.”
It was Phillip Carter’s voice, even now, sounding confident and in charge.
Mac put his arm around Meghan as Carter tersely related the events of the past hour. “I’m staying with Catherine for a while,” he concluded. “She was pretty upset at first, but she’s calmer now. She says she wants to speak to Meg.”
“Meg, it’s your mother,” Mac said, holding the receiver out to her. For a moment he wasn’t sure Meghan had heard him, but then she reached for the phone. He could see the effort she was making to sound matter-of-fact.
“Mom, you’re sure you’re okay? . . . What do I think? I think it’s some kind of cruel joke too. You’re right, Dad would never do anything like that. . . . I know . . . I know how tough it is. . . . Come on, you certainly do have the strength to handle this. You’re old Pat’s daughter, aren’t you?
“I have an appointment with Mr. Weicker at the station in an hour. Then I’ll come directly to the hospital. . . . Love you too. Let me talk to Phillip for a minute.
“Phillip, stay with her, won’t you? She shouldn’t be alone now. . . . Thanks.”
When Meg replaced the receiver, she cried, “It’s a miracle my mother didn’t have a full-blown heart attack, what with investigators asking about Dad and those roses being delivered.” Her mouth quivered and she bit her lip.
Oh, Meg, Mac thought. He ached to put his arms around her, to hold her to him, to kiss the pain from her eyes and lips. Instead he tried to reassure her about the primary fear that he knew was paralyzing her.
“Catherine isn’t going to have a heart attack,” he said firmly. “At least put that worry out of your mind. I mean it, Meg. Now, did I get it right from Phillip that the police are trying to tie your dad to that Petrovic woman’s death?”
“Apparently. They kept coming back to the neighbor who said a tall man with a dark late-model sedan visited Petrovic regularly. Dad was tall. He drove a dark sedan.”
“So do thousands of other tall men, Meg. That’s ridiculous.”
“I know it is. Mom knows it too. But the police categorically don’t believe Dad was in the bridge accident, which means to them that he’s probably still alive. They want to know why he vouched for Petrovic’s falsified credentials. They asked Mom if she thought he might have had some kind of personal relationship with Petrovic.”
“Do you believe that he’s alive, Meg?”
“No, I don’t. But if he put Helene Petrovic in that job knowing she was a fraud, something was wrong. Unless she somehow fooled him too.”
“Meg, I’ve known your father since I was a college freshman. If there’s one point on which I can reassure you, it’s that Edwin Collins is or was a very gentle man. What you told Catherine is absolutely true. That middle-of-the-night phone call and sending those flowers your mother received just aren’t things your father would have done. They’re the kind of games cruel people play.”
“Or demented people.” Meghan straightened up as though just aware of Mac’s arm around her. Quietly, Mac removed it.
He said, “Meg, flowers have to be paid for, with cash, with a credit card, with a charge account. How was the payment for the roses handled?”
“I gather the investigators are hot onto that scenario.”
Jimmy Neary offered an Irish coffee.
Meghan shook her head. “I sure could use one, Jimmy, but we’d better take a rain check. I have to get to the office.”
Mac was going back to work. Before they got into their cars, he put his hands on her shoulders. “Meg, one thing. Promise me you’ll let me help.”
“Oh, Mac,” she sighed, “I think you’ve had your share of the Collins family’s problems for a while. How long did Dr. Lyons say it would take to get the results of the DNA comparison?”
“Four to six weeks,” Mac said. “I’ll call you tonight, Meg.”
Half an hour later, Meghan was sitting in Tom Weicker’s office. “That was a hell of a good interview with the receptionist at the Manning Clinic,” he told her. “No one else has anything like it. But in view of your father’s connection to Petrovic, I don’t want you to go near that place again.”
It was what she expected to hear. She looked squarely at him. “The Franklin Center in Philadelphia has a terrific reputation. I’d like to substitute that in vitro facility for Manning in the feature.” She waited, dreading to hear that he was pulling her off that too.
She was relieved when he said, “I want the feature completed as soon as possible. Everybody’s buzzing about in vitro fertilization because of Petrovic. The timing is great. When can you go to Philadelphia?”
“Tomorrow.”
She felt dishonest not telling Tom that Dr. Henry Williams, who headed the Franklin Center, had worked with Helene Petrovic at Manning. But, she reasoned, if she had any chance of getting in to talk to Williams it would be as a PCD reporter, not as the daughter of the man who had submitted Petrovic’s bogus résumé and glowingly recommended her.
Bernie drove to Manhattan from Connecticut. Seeing Meghan’s house brought back memories of all the other times he’d followed a girl home, then hidden in her car or garage or even in the shrubbery around her house, just so he could watch her. It was like being in a different world where
it was just the two of them alive, even though the girl didn’t know he was there.
He knew he had to be near Meghan, but he’d have to be careful. Newtown was a ritzy little community, and cops in places like that were always on the lookout for strange cars driving around a neighborhood.
Suppose I’d hit that dog, Bernie thought as he drove through the Bronx toward the Willis Avenue bridge. The kid who owned it probably would have started yelling his head off. People would have rushed out to see what happened. One of them might have started asking questions, like what’s a guy in a gypsy cab doing in this neighborhood, on a dead end street? If somebody’d called the cops, they might have checked my record, Bernie thought. He knew what that would mean.
There was only one thing for him to do. When he got to midtown Manhattan, he drove to the discount shop on Forty-seventh Street where he acquired most of his electronic gadgets. For a long time he’d had his eye on a real state-of-the-art video camera there. Today he bought that and a police scanner radio for the car.
He then went to an art supply store and bought sheets of pink paper. This year pink was the color of the press passes the police issued to the media. He had one at home. A reporter had dropped it in the garage. On his computer, he could copy it and make up a press pass that looked official, and he’d also make himself a press parking permit to stick in his windshield.
There were bunches of local cable stations around that no one paid any attention to. He’d say he was from one of them. He’d be Bernie Heffernan, news reporter.
Just like Meghan.
The only problem was, he was going through his vacation and severance pay too fast. He had to keep money coming in. Fortunately he managed to pick up a fare to Kennedy Airport and one back into the city before it was time to go home.
At dinner his mother was sneezing. “Are you getting a cold, Mama?” he asked solicitously.
“I don’t get colds. I just have allergies,” she snapped. “I think there’s dust in this house.”
“Mama, you know there’s no dust here. You’re a good housekeeper.”
“Bernard, are you keeping the basement clean? I’m trusting you. I don’t dare attempt those stairs after what happened.”
“Mama, it’s fine.”
They watched the six o’clock news together and saw Meghan Collins interviewing the receptionist at the Manning Clinic.
Bernie leaned forward, drinking in Meghan’s profile as she asked questions. His hands and forehead grew damp.
Then the remote selector was yanked from his hand. As the television clicked off, he felt a stinging slap on his face. “You’re starting again, Bernard,” his mother screamed. “You’re watching that girl. I can tell. I can just tell! Don’t you ever learn?”
When Meghan got to the hospital, she found her mother fully dressed. “Virginia brought me some clothes. I’ve got to get out of here,” Catherine Collins said firmly. “I can’t just lie in this bed and think. It’s too unsettling. At least at the inn I’ll be busy.”
“What did the doctor say?”
“At first he objected, of course, but now he agrees, or at least he’s willing to sign me out.” Her voice faltered. “Meggie, don’t try to change my mind. It really is better if I’m home.”
Meghan hugged her fiercely. “Are you packed yet?”
“Down to the toothbrush. Meg, one more thing. Those investigators want to talk to you. When we get home, you have to call and set up an appointment with them.”
The phone was ringing when Meghan pushed open the front door of the house. She ran to get it. It was Dina Anderson. “Meghan. If you’re still interested in being around when the baby is born, start making plans. The doctor is going to put me into Danbury Medical Center on Monday morning and induce labor.”
“I’ll be there. Is it all right if I come up Sunday afternoon with a cameraman and take some pictures of you and Jonathan getting ready for the baby?”
“That will be fine.”
Catherine Collins went from room to room, turning on the lights. “It’s so good to be home,” she murmured.
“Do you want to lie down?”
“That’s the last thing in the world I want to do. I’m going to soak in a tub and get properly dressed and then we’re going to have dinner at the inn.” “Are you sure?” Meghan watched as her mother’s chin went up and her mouth settled in a firm line.
“I’m very sure. Things are going to get a lot worse before they get better, Meg. You’ll see that when you talk to those investigators. But no one is going to think that we’re hiding out.”
“I think Pop’s exact words were, ‘Don’t let the bastards get you.’ I’d better call those people from the state attorney’s office.”
John Dwyer was the assistant state attorney assigned to the Danbury courthouse. His jurisdiction included the town of New Milford.
At forty, Dwyer had been in the state attorney’s office for fifteen years. During those years, he’d sent some upstanding citizens, pillars of the community, to prison for crimes ranging from fraud to murder. He’d also prosecuted three people who’d faked their deaths in an attempt to collect insurance.
Edwin Collins’ supposed death in the Tappan Zee Bridge tragedy had generated much sympathetic coverage in the local media. The family was well known in the area, and the Drumdoe Inn was an institution.
The fact that Collins’ car almost certainly had not gone over the side of the bridge and his role in the verification of Helene Petrovic’s bogus credentials had changed a shocking suburban murder to a statewide scandal. Dwyer knew that the State Department of Health was sending medical investigators to the Manning Clinic to determine how much damage Petrovic might have done in the lab there.
Late Wednesday afternoon, Dwyer had a meeting in his office with the investigators from the New Milford police, Arlene Weiss and Bob Marron. They had managed to get Petrovic’s file from the State Department in Washington.
Weiss reviewed the specifics of it for him. “Petrovic came to the United States twenty years ago, when she was twenty-seven. Her sponsor ran a beauty salon on Broadway. Her visa application lists her education as high school graduate with some training at a cosmetology school in Bucharest.”
“No medical training?” Dwyer asked.
“None that she listed,” Weiss confirmed.
Bob Marron looked at his notes. “She went to work at her friend’s salon, stayed there eleven years and in the last couple took secretarial courses at night.”
Dwyer nodded.
“Then she was offered a job as a secretary at the Dowling Assisted Reproduction Center in Trenton, New Jersey. That’s when she bought the Lawrenceville house.
“Three years later, Collins placed her at the Manning Clinic as an embryologist.”
“What about Edwin Collins? Does his background check out?” Dwyer asked.
“Yes. He’s a Harvard Business graduate. Never been in trouble. Senior partner in the firm. Got a gun permit about ten years ago after he was held up at a red light in Bridgeport.”
The intercom buzzed. “Miss Collins returning Mr. Marron’s call.”
“That’s Collins’ daughter?” Dwyer asked.
“Yes.”
“Get her in here tomorrow.”
Marron took the phone and spoke to Meghan, then looked at the assistant state attorney. “Eight o’clock tomorrow morning all right? She’s driving to Philadelphia on assignment and needs to come in early.”
Dwyer nodded.
After Marron confirmed the appointment with Meghan and replaced the receiver, Dwyer leaned back in his swivel chair. “Let’s see what we have. Edwin Collins disappeared and is presumed dead. But now his wife receives flowers from him, which you tell me were charged to his credit card.”
“The order was phoned in to the florist. The credit card has never been canceled. On the other hand, until this afternoon, it hasn’t been used since January,” Weiss said.
“Wasn’t it tagged after his disappearance to see
if there was activity on the account?”
“Until the other day, Collins was presumed to have drowned. There was no reason to put an alert on his cards.”
Arlene Weiss was looking over her notes. “I want to ask Meghan Collins about something her mother said. That phone call that landed Mrs. Collins in the hospital, the one that she swears didn’t sound like her husband . . .”
“What about it?”
“She thought she heard the caller say something like, ‘I’m in terrible trouble.’ What did that mean?”
“We’ll ask the daughter what she thinks when we talk to her tomorrow,” Dwyer said. “I know what I think. Is Edwin Collins still listed as missing-presumed-dead?”
Marron and Weiss nodded together. Assistant State Attorney Dwyer got up. “We probably should change that. Here’s the way I see it. One, we’ve established Collins’ connection to Petrovic. Two, he almost certainly did not die in the bridge accident. Three, he took all the cash value from his insurance policies a few weeks before he disappeared. Four, no trace of his car has been found, but a tall man in a dark sedan regularly visited the Petrovic woman. Five, the phone call, the use of the credit card, the flowers. I say it’s enough. Put out an APB on Edwin Collins. Make it, ‘Wanted for questioning in the murder of Helene Petrovic.’”
30
Just before five o’clock, Victor Orsini received the call he was afraid might come. Larry Downes, president of Downes and Rosen, phoned to tell him that it would be better all around if he held off giving notice at Collins and Carter.
“For how long, Larry?” Victor asked quietly.
“I don’t know,” Downes said evasively. “This fuss about the Petrovic woman will all die down eventually, but you have too much negative feedback attached to you for you to come here now. And if it turns out that Petrovic mixed up any of those embryos at the clinic, there’ll be hell to pay, and you know it. You guys placed her there, and you’ll be held responsible.”